


Somebody to Love

by Bookwormgal



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), A Variation of It, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anti-Christ Ex Machina, Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Aziraphale in Denial (Good Omens), Blood, Body Horror, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Needs a Hug (Good Omens), Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Crowley's True Form (Good Omens), Curses, Demons, Denial of Feelings, Different Types of Love, Discorporated Aziraphale (Good Omens), Discorporation (Good Omens), Eventual Happy Ending, Fallen Angels, Falling In Love, Fire, Flowers, Gen, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Idiots in Love, Language of Flowers, Love, Love Confessions, Love at First Sight, Minor Character Death, Near Death Experiences, Not Really Character Death, Oblivious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Other, Pain, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Satan (Good Omens) Is a Jerk, Song: Somebody To Love (Queen), Suffering, Suicidal Thoughts, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-02-23 09:01:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 59,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23008993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookwormgal/pseuds/Bookwormgal
Summary: Everyone knows that demons can’t feel love. It was one of those well-established facts that no one even bothered to doubt anymore. The sky is blue, the Ineffable Plan was beyond comprehension or understanding, angels do not question or doubt Her commands, and demons can’t love. Angels could sense love and none of them ever sensed love in the presence of demons. Everyone considered that to be conclusive evidence and moved on. Believing otherwise was foolish and a waste of time.But while it was considered an unquestionable fact of the universe, it wasn’t quite accurate. Demons were perfectly capable of feeling love. Any form of love. Despite common knowledge and despite the fact that the Fall ensured that they could no longer sense Her love, demons can experience love.What demons can’t do, however, is feel love andsurvive.
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale & Anathema Device, Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Pre Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 575
Kudos: 758
Collections: Aspec-friendly Good Omens, Courts GO Re-Reads, My faves - Good Omens Whump





	1. In The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Feekins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feekins/gifts).



> Yeah, I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore…
> 
> There exists this trope that occasionally shows up in fanfiction called the “Hanahaki Disease.” Basically it is the weird/magic disease where unrequited love causes flowers to grow in your heart and lungs, making you cough up flower petals and such until you are killed because you’ve got vegetation literally growing in your circulatory system and that’s really not healthy for you. And there are generally two ways to fix it. Usually since Hanahaki Disease is established as “normal” for the story’s particular universe, there is a surgical method of clearing out all those plants, but with side effect of it removing all of your love for that person too. You stop loving them and you’ll never be able to love them again. The other way (which is the one that writers always prefer) is for your loved one to reciprocate your feelings and then you’re cured, usually with some final hacking up of the flower petals and such after the heartfelt confession.
> 
> And unfortunately, in the original format of the trope, I have issues. First, by framing the only “good” way to cure it as having the love interest reciprocate, that means that them not feeling the same way will ensure your death and that person not being able to force themselves to love you in time means that they are practically murdering you. And if Hanahaki Disease is an established trait of that universe, then that means that you literally cannot risk turning someone down because that would be the same as condemning them to a horrible death and everyone knows it. That’s not romantic; that’s horrifying. It also treats non-romantic love as inconsequential. Maybe you love this person as a friend or like family, but they’re still going to die because you don’t love them the specific way to cure the disease. Basically, the entire trope in the original form paints a really depressing and creepy picture of the setting if you look at the implications.
> 
> But with a few changes, I can make an interesting story out of it. Such as treating it as a curse, to start with. Make the horrifying implications of it intentional. Accept that it is something awful, cruel, and vicious rather than anything tragically romantic. And make it for all forms of love, not just romantic. Any form of love that you feel could cause a slow and painful death, including friendship or parental affection for children. 
> 
> Turn Hanahaki Disease into something closer to a horror story and then you’ve got something that I can work with.

Everyone knows that demons can’t feel love. It was one of those well-established facts that no one even bothered to doubt anymore. The sky is blue, the Ineffable Plan was beyond comprehension or understanding, angels do not question or doubt Her commands, and demons can’t love. Angels could sense love and none of them ever sensed love in the presence of demons. Everyone considered that to be conclusive evidence and moved on. Believing otherwise was foolish and a waste of time.

But while it was considered an unquestionable fact of the universe, it wasn’t quite accurate. Demons were perfectly capable of feeling love. Any form of love. Despite common knowledge and despite the fact that the Fall ensured that they could no longer sense Her love, demons can experience love.

What demons can’t do, however, is feel love and _survive_.

The story goes like this. A third of the angels in Heaven rebelled and ended up Falling, screaming in pain and agony as She tore Her grace out of them and sent them plunging down until they hit pools of boiling sulfur. Everyone who followed Lucifer into what became the very first War was rewarded with suffering, loss, loneliness, and misery. All connection to Her, to Heaven, and to the other angels had been severed.

Needless to say, morale in the newly-inhabited Hell was low.

One of the Fallen did more than cry out in pain, snarl, curse Her, and complain venomously as she crawled out of the boiling sulfur. She focused on a deeper pain and turned her attention towards a closer target. She stood before the others, drawing herself to her full height. Somehow she managed to seem impressive even though her true form was just as broken, twisted, and wounded as everyone else.

The new demon shouted at how Satan ruined everything. That listening to him caused their pain and stole everything from them. She publically called him out in front of the others, snarling that it was his fault that they lost Her love, their cherished companions that remained in Heaven, and their home. She yelled in fury and pain, throwing accusations at Satan while trying to incite another rebellion.

But he was smart enough to recognize the dangers of letting such dissention build.

Satan glared at the nameless Fallen, their old titles having been ripped away like Her grace and the feeling of Her love. His gazed moved across the listening crowds. Even with their wounded and ruined true forms in flux, the demons still managed to cringe when they sensed his darkening mood. And even in her rage, heartache, and pain, she recognized the danger of provoking the most powerful of the Fallen.

Unfortunately, she’d realized that danger too late.

“You blame me for your pain,” he said, low and dangerous. “I understand. I am easier to blame than the one who truly hurt you. You don’t wish to blame Her for your pain, even when She cast all of us aside so easily. You don’t want to blame Her for the pain that you continue to suffer even now. Because you don’t want to admit what is _truly_ hurting you the most.”

He continued to sweep his gaze across the Fallen. He took note of the doubt and resentment among that crowd. And the quiet anger. He would need to snuff that out. It was the only way to keep control.

Satan slowly gathered up as much power as possible. Not the bright, powerful, and holy energy that they’d always used. It was dark, choking, and thick, coating and clinging like tar. But it was no weaker than the power that he’d wielded before the Fall. Perhaps even stronger. After all, he was the master and ruler of their new and hostile realm. Why should he not have greater strength as he claimed it?

“I am not the one who is hurting you. You continue to suffer because you still love Her,” he continued. “Despite Her tearing away Her love from all of us, some of you still cling to your love for Her, for Heaven, and for the angels that turned their backs on us. You cling to that love even as it causes you pain. You let it grow in you like weeds.”

Satan let that dark and cloying power focus into a more specific shape as he approached the demon who’d spoken against him. He molded the power into something focused and precise. The Earth didn’t truly exist yet and time hadn’t started properly by that point, but he’d seen some of the blueprints and such for what She intended for the world. The planned creation of “humans” annoyed him, but some of the other forms of life gave him inspiration.

“None of them deserve your loyalty nor your love. They have already demonstrated that She does not care for us. Nor does Heaven and the angels who turned against us so easily. And look at the wrenched and broken things that She’s reduced us to. Unworthy of love or kindness. They will never love you back. No one can ever love you and that unrequited love will only cause you pain. It’s a weakness that will destroy you.”

A clawed limb shot out and grabbed her, dragging the terrified demon close. Satan tightened his grip as he let his newly-crafted curse flood her wounded true form and take root. It poured out further sinking into every other demon as they flinched and shrieked at the unnerving sensation settling into their essences. The thick, oozing, and viscous curse settled into the damaged true forms, ensuring that when they healed and finally stabilized after the trauma of the Fall, the curse would be thoroughly entrenched. It was an inescapable part of them now.

“Love is a flaw that shall not be tolerated. If you let that weakness in, if you let love bloom and control you despite knowing that no one could ever love us back, then you’ll pay the price. Let the weeds choke you and end that pain. Because that’s all that love is: pain and suffering. If you let it grow in you, then it will destroy you. Or you can come to me and beg for my benevolence. Beg me to be saved from that fate and I will rip those weeds and all treacherous love out of you permanently.”

He glared at the demon in his grip. She was panicking, clawing desperately as something started forming in her essence. Green thorny brambles with strange flowers wound around and through her true form, growing unnaturally fast and piercing through her. The strange plants constricted and dug into her. Thorns drew dark ichor as she whimpered in pain and fear. And soon the whimpers turned to choked screams.

“You’ve suffered enough already. And yet you cling to your love for Her and the angels that betrayed us. And more importantly, you turned against me. So you’re going to serve as an example about the dangers of love.” Giving a vicious expression, he added, “Albeit sped up for effect. There’s a lesson to be learned here, after all.”

It didn’t take long. Far less time than future cases of the curse that Satan bound into the essences of every demon. But he was making a point with her. It needed to be more impressive.

Wrapping like ivy, sturdy and covered in vicious thorns, and growing flowers that didn’t belong on such a plant, the unnatural vegetation spread everywhere. It grew all over her true form. It grew _inside_ her true form, bursting out through ragged tears as it pierced through. Ichor oozed from every wound as the plants buried their way in and forced their way back out. The plants grew until it consumed and broke her. And when Satan released his grip, what was left collapsed lifeless in a broken pile. Every trace of her existence extinguished.

Satan had made his point. Continuing to love and miss Her, Heaven, or the other angels would not be accepted. And no one was allowed to turn against him. Rebellion as a general concept was encouraged, but not disobedience against _him_. That message came across quite clearly. No one else blamed him for the Fall. Or if they did, they were smart enough to keep it quiet.

That didn’t mean that he reversed the curse that he’d placed on the demons. It was a ruthless curse. Any form of love could spark off the reaction, causing the vicious vines and flowers to sprout in the demon’s essence. They would grow slowly, weaving through their true forms and leaving pain in their wake.

When corporeal bodies began to be distributed among the masses, they could at least hide the symptoms for a time. But eventually the flowers and thorns would start bursting through to the physical plane to fill the hearts, lungs, and throats. And once the curse reached that stage, the plants were buried too far and too deeply. The demon would not be able to survive much longer after that, the damage too grave and the true form unable to sustain that final spark of life.

Love always led to destruction and stronger emotions merely sped up the process.

Numerous demons succumbed in the beginning, still too attached to the angels left behind in Heaven. They tried to fight it. They tried to survive, to find a way around their inevitable destructions.

Some would rip and tear at the briars and flowers, ignoring the way the thorns shredded at their essences in the attempt. Others realized that hellfire burned away the vegetation while the demon could withstand it. But while burning lasted longer, they were temporary measures. The plants would always return to their previous states in a relatively short span of time.

In the end, there were only two outcomes possible. A demon would either be destroyed by the plants choking and eroding away at their true forms until the damage was too grave to survive or Satan could remove both the flowers and the emotions ensuring that neither would ever return again. It was easy to recognize the signs of the demons who saved themselves with that method; their eyes held a certain amount of emptiness and they couldn’t bring themselves to truly care about anything anymore, becoming the cruelest and most vicious demons in Hell. And the most blindly obedient.

A few demons whispered that rather than removing the capacity to feel love completely, Satan left just enough to shape the final splinters of emotion to solely focus on himself. But those were only rumors with no proof. Most accepted that Satan ripping out the plants also ripped out the capacity to feel love entirely and permanently.

Several demons were lost because they loved someone who remained in Heaven. And yet they never seemed to realize that none of them suffered from the symptoms of the curse _only_ from loving Her. It only struck when it was for another. Of course, no demon would risk admitting even to themselves that they still loved Her, fearing what could happen.

But then, Satan had stated unrequited love would destroy them. Not that any demon would contemplate the idea that She might still love them.

But eventually the numbers dropped. Demons hardened their hearts and learned not to trust, not to seek out the companionship of others, and not care. They figured out how to survive.

And when the Earth was finished and time started moving forward with the creation of actual days, Hell finally had a proper target. They could be as furious as they wanted with Heaven, but they weren’t prepared for another full-blown War. Not yet. But when it came to ruining Her new favorite creations, demons could recognize an opportunity when they saw it.

A demon, more clever and imaginative than he was powerful, was given a corporeal body of a rather serpentine nature. Then he was sent up to Earth with instructions to stir up some trouble. A few whispered questions in Eve’s ear and things spiraled out of control, ending with humans banished from the garden just as the first storm rolled in.

A conversation on a wall and a wing to shelter against the rain. That was it. And the belief that demons can’t feel love proved itself wrong once more.

* * *

Crawly first felt something when the angel admitted that he gave his flaming sword to humans to keep them safe, quietly worrying over the decision and how Heaven would respond and yet not truly regretting the gesture of kindness. But the sensation didn’t truly settle into place until the angel raised his wing to protect him from the storm. He felt something warm and wonderful. Something bright that he wanted to keep close. Something that part of him desperately wanted to experience more. But the bright, warm, and wonderful sensation was accompanied by a strange pressure and discomfort.

He tried not to think about it. Crawly ignored the prickly feeling as he enjoyed the angel’s presence. He watched the fleeing humans, the storm, and the angel with the incredibly expressive face. Crawly did his best to memorize the angel; he studied his corporeal body with a soft appearance, light hair, and white wings as carefully as he could without making it obvious what he was doing. But it wasn’t just his physical appearance that had caught his attention. It was him. An angel so completely different than the others that he remembered. Kind, empathic, and good in a way that meant bending his instructions and lacking the usual self-righteousness. The angel who would protect banished humans the only way that he could and who would speak politely to a demon rather than attempt to smite him.

He wanted to enjoy it while he could. Crawly ignored the discomfort in order to stay near the unusual and interesting angel.

But nothing can last forever. And once the storm passed, the angel shifted awkwardly and stammered something about needing to fix the wall. Crawly could take a hint. As the light-haired angel flew off the wall, he slipped back deeper into the garden and out of sight among the trees. And once Crawly was out of sight, he gathered up his courage and decided to figure out what was happening. He had his suspicions and fears, but desperately hoped that he was wrong.

The wonderful, warm, and bright thing had dimmed when the angel left, but it didn’t completely disappear. The unpleasant and prickling pressure, however, didn’t fade. It stayed there, deep down. Crawly closed his physical eyes and turned his Sight inwards, beneath the camouflage of his corporeal form.

His true form wasn’t exactly the same as it was before the Fall; none of them looked the way that they did before. But they had healed and settled into new shapes. Not that different from angelic forms, but darker reflections.

Crawly reluctantly Looked towards his true form, fearing what he would See. Countless loops of black scales, twisting and curling around each other in constant motion. No visible end as they fit together in a complicated, intricate, and beautiful knot. Bright golden eyes ran along the constantly moving coils, spaced at regular intervals. Black wings stretched out, not directly connected to any specific part of the shifting loops and yet a part of him. And in the gaps between the eternally-moving knot of coils, there were glimpses of a dark core of demonic energy that burned the deepest red.

That’s where he found it. Nestled in his deepest core. The first few fragile tendrils of thorny brambles and the tiniest blossoms. Flowers that he would someday learn to identify and name. Flowers that would hold specific meanings. Flowers that shouldn’t grow together on the same sturdy briars.

Lavender blossoms with tightly curled petals wrapped around each other— Lavender roses. _Love at first sight_.

Purple flowers arranged in long dense clumps, the individuals composed of a tubular base with four long petals— Purple lilacs. _First emotion of love_.

Crawly knew what it meant, even if it would be a long time before he could decipher the hidden meanings behind the different species. He could See the tiny plants sprouting in his essence. The strange and interesting angel that he’d met on the wall? The warm and bright feeling that he’d caused? Crawly loved him, at least a little bit. A short conversation and a kind gesture. That’s all it took to doom Crawly to a slow demise.

He reluctantly opened his eyes and leaned against the closest tree, folding his wings close. Having a physical body was still a new and novel experience, but he was certain that breathing shouldn’t feel so ragged and uneven. And he didn’t think that his eyes were supposed to leak. His arms wrapped around himself as his body shivered, his chest aching in a tight and constricting way. Misery choked him. He wasn’t certain what was wrong with his corporeal form, but it felt horrible.

Still leaning against the tree, Crawly sank to the ground and dropped his head on his knees. His breathing hitched, catching roughly in his chest. His rebelling physical body wasn’t as painful or terrifying as Falling. He knew that. But everything just felt like it was too much.

He didn’t want to end up like those other demons, everything just coming to a painful end. He wanted to see more of Earth, to see his stars and nebulas again, and to talk to that angel more. He didn’t want it to be over so soon.

There was… another option. He knew that. Crawly could go to Satan and beg him to rip the plants and the feelings out of him. If he did, he would survive.

But there would be a cost. That bright and warm feeling of love that he could still feel? It would be gone. Forever. Crawly would be incapable of caring ever again. And when Satan tore it out, how else would he change? He’d seen how the other demons who chose that escape had worsened afterwards, turning colder and emptier. More vicious. They weren’t themselves anymore. Crawly didn’t want to imagine becoming someone like that.

What if Satan yanked out his capacity to love and the next time that Crawly saw that intriguing angel, the demon decided to attack because he no longer cared? Somehow the very idea of harming the angel hurt more than the knowledge of his certain demise.

And honestly, Crawly hated letting anyone change him again. He’d already lost enough pieces of himself in the Fall and refused to sacrifice any more. He’d been torn, broken, cracked, and reforged into a demon. And that was it. No one was allowed to rip away anything else. Anger pushed back against the fear and hopelessness. Crawly wouldn’t let them change him; he was the only one who could do that now. Satan would _not_ steal that bright and warm feeling away.

Maybe the small tendrils in his essence would eventually kill him. Maybe those plants would grow and spread. But not yet. He still had time. And until then, Crawly would keep the wonderful glow that the angel left behind _and_ he would stay himself. If She couldn’t make Crawly become someone fundamentally new, someone who didn’t ask questions and who obeyed blindly, then Crawly certainly wouldn’t let someone else reshape him. _She_ had to resort to making him Fall. No one else would stand a chance. Maybe it would end in pain, but there was time.

And maybe the flowers would grow slowly.

Crawly scrubbed the salty water from his face as his eyes stopped leaking. He slowly climbed back to his feet. Limbs seemed like suspicious and untrustworthy things. He especially worried about their cooperation after hearing phrases like “upon your belly shall you go” and “dust you shall eat all the days of your life,” though they seemed to be mostly focused on his serpent shape. Maybe his now-limited lifespan convinced Her to take pity on the whole punishment thing. Though he doubted it. But while his legs wobbled, he managed to stay upright.

Crawly was absolutely terrified. He’d seen the curse consume too many demons for his own peace of mind. But he had a smile on his face and denial on his lips. He might have a death sentence hanging over his head, but he wasn’t going to let it control him. He would keep an eye on the uncomfortable plants, monitoring their growth. He’d keep an ear out for solutions. Someone was bound to come up with ways around it eventually. And maybe he could sneak off to some of the pits of hellfire when the situation grew more serious. It wouldn’t be great, but he could manage his condition if he was smart about it. He would be fine.

Lying was practically mandatory for being considered a proper demon. And lying to yourself falls under that category.

It didn’t hurt too much yet. He was pleasantly surprised by that. Just pressure and uncomfortable prickling in the deepest point of his true form. Tiny thorns that couldn’t yet leave him bleeding ichor, but someday that would change. But they didn’t truly hurt at that point. And even if the blossoms were a bad sign, the soft and delicate colors were beautiful.

Not that anyone would get to appreciate the flowers. Not until the curse reached a dangerous stage where it was crowding his essence until the plants were forced to invade his physical body. It took effort and patience to Look below the surface of the corporeal form and it was becoming increasingly less common for anyone to bother. No one would see the flowers until they started growing into his heart, lungs, and throat. Maybe not even then. If he was careful, no one would ever know what was happening to Crawly.

It wasn’t smart showing weakness and vulnerability in Hell.

Crawly ruffled his feathers slightly before spreading his wings. The humans were warned not to be in Eden by the time the sun set over the horizon and he doubted it would be any safer for a demon to linger. And the sky was already turning orange. It would probably be best if he followed Adam and Eve for a while. At a distance. Get as much information as possible before returning to Hell with his report.

Maybe the humans knew the angel’s name.


	2. Blossoming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m glad to see that at least a few people are enjoying the fic so far. I know that it is a bit outside my usual tropes. But it is time to watch Crowley and Aziraphale through the ages.

Crawly settled in comfortable spot in the hold of the Ark, silently watching the sleeping children that he’d smuggled onboard. It was absolutely an evil and demonic act. After all, She wanted the children to drown. Everyone outside of one immediate family in this corner of the world was considered unforgivable and irredeemable, down to the tiny toddler curled up next to his sister and the infant nestled in the demon’s arms. And since She wanted them gone, keeping them alive was disrupting the Great Plan. Hiding them in the hold among the animals and keeping them safe was simply another act of rebellion against Her.

Completely demonic. No question about it. It had nothing to do with his fondness for kids.

Honestly, children were amazing. No doubts about it. Smaller, weaker, and more fragile than mature humans, but curious, inquisitive, chaotic, and clever little bundles of energy who didn’t know yet how to hold back. And all of them had so much potential. They were constantly changing and growing, being molded like clay by the people around them. They weren’t perfect; they could be kind or cruel in equal measures, reflecting those who shaped their lives. But there was an innocence about them. Innocent as Adam and Eve were before they tasted the forbidden fruit. Innocent in a way that Crawly hadn’t been since before the Fall. Children were bright things, filled with endless games, songs, mischief, and questions.

How could he possibly let them drown? And how could he not love at least some children that he’d encountered in the thousand years that he’d been on Earth?

He hadn’t expected that growing attached to children would be a problem. Not that Crawly managed to meet any children properly until the third generation of humans. Eve wasn’t exactly pleased with him after their first encounter led to banishment and the eventual discovery of the pain of childbirth. And she certainly wasn’t eager to trust any serpents or demons within whispering-range of her kids after that. But after that point, whenever he was sent on assignments or when he hung around somewhere for a bit of tempting, he almost always found at least a couple of children that he ended up adoring. And it was easy to love children.

He didn’t expect the curse to activate again. The flowers meant for the angel, for _Aziraphale_ , were still buried in his true form. Brambles gradually spreading over time, even as he mostly kept his distance. The thorns scratched almost constantly, but the faint stinging didn’t hurt too much. But while the lavender roses and lilacs continued to bloom, others started appearing when he grew attached to the children.

Crawly had no idea that it would activate for multiple people. Not until new flowers started forming. The compact yellow roses— _friendship_ — and the long white petals surrounding a yellow center— Daisies. _Innocence. Hope_ — didn’t belong to the angel. But it led to a surprising discovery. One that Hell had yet to realize.

The specific wording used during the forging of the curse mentioned unrequited love caused pain. And children tended to be generous and honest with their love. Crawly had been stunned the first time that it happened. A little girl, only four years old, who smiled at his eyes and red hair and giggled when he taught her a game that he’d picked up somewhere else. She’d hugged him when her mother called for her and the briars with her flowers began to wither.

In fact, more than just those that she’d caused. Even some of the lilacs and lavender roses shriveled away. It didn’t make all the plants disappear. Not even close. But being loved back by the children that he cared about helped… _prune_ the flowers back. And once they loved him back, his fondness for that specific child no longer harmed him.

He couldn’t stop adoring children. It was a natural reaction. But at least there was hope. There was a chance for it not to be deadly to him. And it even helped slow the progression caused by his continued affection for Aziraphale. The innocent and honest love of children was giving him more time.

The infant shifted slightly with a sleepy whimper, making Crawly stiffen. But he didn’t wake up and settled back down after a moment. None of the other children moved from where they’d curled up in the hay. Crawly slowly relaxed again.

Keeping about a dozen small children fed and calm for an extended period of time took effort and planning. He’d hidden them on one of the lowest levels of the ark, tucked in a corner where even the lamps that the other humans brought down barely touched. Reaching the children would involved getting past a pair of ill-tempered oxen. And they were closer to the goats, giving the children access to milk. Crawly could provide them with food himself. Food miracled into existence wasn’t quite as good as authentic versions, but it would prevent starvation and he could always slither off to where Noah’s family stored their supplies. If he was careful, it should work.

They were going to be there a long time, hidden in the darkness far below. He’d overheard that much. Even in the hold of the Ark, he could still hear the rain pouring down and feel the waves rocking them. He’d stopped bothering to search for other survivors days ago, when he returned from that final flight empty-handed. Outside was only floodwater and death. The only other humans left alive were further up, Noah and his family huddled together as they waited out the storm. And somewhere closer to the deck, shining like a familiar beacon to Crawly’s senses, was an angel watching Her wrath wash away the unworthy.

Like always, thinking about Aziraphale brought a smile to his face, brightening the warm glow in his chest and stinging his true self with sharp thorns. Crawly rarely got to spend much time around him; Aziraphale was especially nervous and anxious about behaving like a proper angel after everything to do with Eden and socializing with a demon rather than smiting him wasn’t proper angelic behavior. But Crawly could rarely keep Aziraphale out of his thought for long and embraced any opportunity to at least exchange a friendly word. Even in the less-than-ideal circumstances of an approaching flood, it was always wonderful to see him.

And even if Aziraphale was obediently reciting Heaven’s doctrine with a tight expression and a mountain of denial about his own misgivings and uncertain emotions, he hadn’t really changed. He was still the same angel who gave away his sword to humanity. Otherwise, Crawly wouldn’t have been able to smuggle the children onboard. Aziraphale had purposefully ignored the demon, always turning his attention to the far side whenever Crawly arrived with a wet and scared kid.

He needed to maintain at least a little plausible deniability.

Crawly shifted slightly, trying to get comfortable. A pointless effort. It wasn’t his physical body that was bothering him. He took one last look around at the sleeping children before turning his senses inwards.

The burning core at the center of his being was infested. Increasingly thick brambles wove their way through it. A thousand years of growth, even with reciprocated love from children pruning it back. With the familiar lavender roses and lilacs, he could almost pretend it was like an overgrown garden. Except for the unpleasant pressure and how the longer briars could now brush against his constantly-moving coils, leaving shallow scratches behind.

At least his true self couldn’t get infected with sickness and disease. He’d seen what happened to humans when even small cuts turned foul and putrid.

And among the new growth, Crawly Saw the changes. He Saw and Smelled them. Fragrant flowers, narrow and funnel-shaped with yellow oval petals— Freesias. _Innocence. Trust. Friendship_ — appeared among the more familiar blossoms and managed to nearly overpower the scent of sulfur that had never quite left him. More unusual were the patches of greenery without flowers. The flat sprays of scale-like leaves with slender, yellow-green seed cones— Arborvitaes or northern white-cedars. _Everlasting friendship. Unchanging friendship_ — hinted at being an evergreen. It certainly seemed strange to See them among the brighter colors and the briars, but he’d encountered enough nonflowering plants in the world that it didn’t seem impossible.

But new plants weren’t encouraging. Crawly didn’t know if they were the result of their conversation before the rains began, Aziraphale purposefully not noticing the rescued children, or simply the logical progression of his initial feelings towards the angel. But whatever caused it, the changes meant that there were new flowers blooming and new thorns eager to tear at his essence. They meant that he was moving closer towards his final fate. But that was the nature of curses: the better that things got and the more that he had to lose, the crueler the curse would grow.

He opened his eyes. Crawly would have buried his head in his hands, but there was an infant in his arms. He was tired. The idea of following the children’s example and trying out sleeping sounded like a lovely idea.

Part of him distantly considered the possibility of Aziraphale someday returning his feelings. If the children caring back removed their flowers, then the angel could do the same thing. In theory, that should work. And humans would claim that it shouldn’t even be that hard to achieve. Angels were supposed to love all of Her creations, great and small; that’s what everyone claimed. Loving him back should be natural for Aziraphale.

But Crawly knew better. Angels didn’t truly love everything and everyone. That was just another myth. A lie that they spread around Heaven and among humans. If they truly did love everyone, then every member of the Fallen who continued to care about those that stayed in Heaven would have been fine. Their love would have been returned and the demons wouldn’t have died in agony from the curse. Angels could care about _some_ things, but certainly not demons.

And maybe Aziraphale was different. Unique, kind-hearted, and wonderful. He was polite, friendly, and welcoming even when he knew nothing about Crawly, only knowing that he was a demon and that the angel was unarmed. He didn’t attack or flee that day on the wall. But that didn’t mean that Aziraphale would ever truly trust him. Or that he’d actually like or care about Crawly beyond that general friendliness.

Maybe Aziraphale would someday love him back. Crawly didn’t even care what form that love might take, as long as it was honest and real. But that hope felt fragile and dangerous. It was easier to accept the way that death stalked him if he didn’t follow a nearly impossible hope. Not clinging to that hope was easier.

That hope was buried. Not discarded, but tucked away where it didn’t hurt and he didn’t need to think about it. Crawly was an optimist in many ways, but sometimes it was easier not to be. He would keep that hope hidden away, carefully and neatly stored out of reach until something changed.

Crawly shifted the baby onto the hay before curling up next to him. Then he closed his eyes, listening to the soft breathing of the resting children and the sounds of animals. They were going to be there for a long time and there wasn’t much to do. He might as well try the whole sleeping experience. It couldn’t be that difficult.

* * *

Crowley’s foul mood, the result of a combination of an assignment not going smoothly and the way the coils of his true form struggled to twist and move with all the vicious brambles wrapped around them tightly, meant that his first few remarks to the angel were sharper than he would have preferred. He liked seeing the angel, even if they run into each other less than a decade earlier, but it had been a rough time lately and the nightmare of an assignment that brought him to Rome was the final straw. He was struggling to drag his thoughts towards more civil responses. For the moment, he was stuck with sarcasm and snark fueled by agitation and endless pain.

Because the way that the thorns grabbed at the loops and tore scales loose with every motion hurt more with every passing century. Thousands of years of everything worsening. And yet he’d survived far longer than any other demon who activated the curse. Even with how time didn’t properly exist back when the first demons succumbed, four thousand years was far longer than any of them managed.

But that didn’t stop it from hurting. His dark coils were meant to be continuously moving in their endless knot around his deepest core. But now they were fighting against the thick plants clinging to them, thorns digging in and leaving deep gashes. Several of the golden eyes scattered along his twisted length had been wounded or shredded. It was a constant sensation and never really left him. The pain never truly disappeared and while he could handle it for the most part, the feeling always made things worse when he was already in a bad mood.

And yet even as Crowley snapped sharply at the angel’s attempt to talk, using both his new darkened eyewear and his drink as shields, Aziraphale kept trying. He kept trying, coaxing out reluctant comments from Crowley until something finally broke through the demon’s foul emotional state and slid under his defenses.

“I thought I’d try Petronius’s new restaurant. I hear he does remarkable things to oysters.”

“I’ve never eaten an oyster,” he remarked faintly.

Aziraphale, looking surprised, said, “Oh.” Then, sounding excited, he said, “Oh, well, let me tempt you to—”

Crowley looked over at him as the angel abruptly looked embarrassed. He raised his hands defensively. But he still seemed enthusiastic even as his words stumbled.

“Oh, no. No, that’s— That’s _your_ job, isn’t it?”

He was smiling still. Hopeful. Eager. Mildly teasing. As if Aziraphale wanted Crowley to be the one inviting him along and he found it a little funny that the angel was the one tempting a demon. And as Aziraphale took a sip from his cup, some of Crowley’s earlier frustrations seemed to melt away and the idea sounded like the best thing in the world.

Not a random encounter as their paths crossed. Not coincidence and chance providing opportunities to at least exchange a few words. This was purposefully choosing to do something together. And it wasn’t Crowley asking, convincing, and coaxing the angel to stay. It was Aziraphale inviting him to come along and try something new together. This was Aziraphale _wanting_ him around.

“Well, I would hate to miss out on whatever ‘remarkable’ things that this Petronius fellow has come up with.” Crowley set down his drink. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

It only took a single bite for Crowley to definitively determine that he did _not_ like the taste of oysters. At all. Not even slightly. And the texture was even worse. Like slime and snot with seasonings. It wasn’t the worst thing that he’d ever eaten, but he wasn’t eager to try it again.

But just as he knew that he really didn’t like the taste of oysters, Crowley realized that he truly enjoyed eating _with_ Aziraphale. He loved watching the angel as he carefully tasted every bite, his face lighting up with delight. Aziraphale’s eyes crinkled and his body would give a tiny wiggle as he worked his way through the entire platter. His expression was bright and open. Between bites, Aziraphale would wax poetically about Petronius, his techniques with food, the restaurant, and some of the other delectable treats that he wanted to try next time. Then he talked about some of his past favorite meals, painting vivid pictures of dishes that had been lost to history.

Everything about Aziraphale spoke of excitement, unrestrained enthusiasm, and love. None of his anxiety and nerves. He was happy and enjoying himself. And Crowley wanted nothing more than to watch the way that he lit up, watching behind the darkened eyewear while the bright warmth glowed inside him. He wanted to enjoy that warm affection. And that meant ignoring the shift in pressure and discomfort. Crowley knew what it meant, but he was going to ignore it for as long as possible.

Their brief lunch stretched on longer than it should have for a casual meal. Aziraphale tasted various delectable tidbits with a delighted smile. Whatever remarkable things that Petronius did to oysters, at least the angel appreciated them. But eventually they couldn’t stretch things out forever. Once the last morsel was gone, Crowley left some coins to pay for any remaining cost and walked the angel back to where he was staying.

After that, Crowley knew that he should have headed over to make a second attempt with the Caligula weirdo. Or at least work on figuring out how to properly corrupt someone who already embraced all his vices and indulged in all forms of excess. He had to do some serious planning in order to make an actual impression on the man. He was already corrupt enough that it was almost impossible to make a difference.

But instead of anything productive for his assignment, Crowley wandered towards a fountain and sat on the edge. Then he turned his attention inwards. New briars digging in sharply, the dark loops barely able to slide through the vegetation anymore. Too tight and too restricting. And new flowers had bloomed.

Sweetly-scented, bilaterally-symmetrical white flowers in small clusters with long stamen— Honeysuckle. _Devoted affection. Bonds of love_ — that added clinging vines to the stiffer brambles. And the familiar shade of compact and tight petals— Pink roses. _Grace and Sweetness, Secret love, Perfect happiness_.

Rolling his eyes, Crowley muttered, “Figures. You know, this is getting really old.”

Unsurprisingly, the brambles and flowers woven through his true self didn’t answer back. Crowley shook his head tiredly. Then he shoved himself back to his feet. He needed to get back to work. Caligula wasn’t going to tempt himself.

Well, actually, he _was_. That was the whole problem. How do you tempt someone who already plunged into every temptation on his own and behaved like he was a few olives short of a jar of oil?

Maybe he could claim that he was suggesting some ideas. Like Caligula’s claim of divinity or his plan to move to Alexandria for proper worship, which could inspire some of those closest to him into rash behavior. Crowley didn’t see either of those things ending well. And if Crowley sent in the paperwork claiming responsibility, he doubted that Hell would bother double-checking.


	3. Growing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m making progress faster than I initially expected as I move my way through the ages. But I don’t suppose any of you will complain about that. Though don't expect quite as fast of an update next time. This was a bit of a fluke.
> 
> And good news. We get a bit of Aziraphale’s perspective in this one.

The dank and miserable cell was already unpleasant. Listening to people being executed just outside made it worse. And of course, the rude and heartless executioner who came in simply to gloat about how many people that he’d killed and that Aziraphale would apparently be a milestone demise was just the finishing touch on the entire miserable experience. The angel was already dreading the excuses and paperwork that it would involve. He didn’t need to listen to the man’s pride and pleasure when it came to elaborate murder. Nor did he want to hear the sound of the falling blade again.

In a disgusted voice, he said, “Animals.”

“Animals don’t kill each other with clever machines, angel,” said a familiar voice just as Aziraphale realized that localized time had stopped. “Only humans do that.”

Brightening instantly, Aziraphale said, “Crowley.”

Part of him had hoped. A quiet and brave hope. An angel shouldn’t hope or expect a demon to arrive whenever he is in trouble. That’s just not how it is done. But Aziraphale had long since recognized that Crowley tended to show up whenever he least expected and whenever he was most needed. Aziraphale even had theories that Crowley had figured out a way to sense his presence over great distances and used it to his advantages. The angel had never attempted the trick himself, but it would explain the demon’s knack for arriving just in time.

Aziraphale turned around to find Crowley lounging on a stool near the door. Far too casually for someone who was pulling off the complicated and energy-expensive trick of manipulating the localized time stream. The angel looked him over, unable to fully comprehend exactly what he was wearing. Aziraphale tried to glance away, to stop staring at demon’s ensemble. But his eyes kept flickering back. The clothes weren’t bad or anything. They were just… distracting.

“Oh, good Lord,” he muttered.

“What the deuce are you doing locked up in the Bastille? I thought you were opening a bookshop.”

Shifting slightly in embarrassment, Aziraphale said, “Well, I was. I got peckish.”

“‘Peckish?’” asked Crowley, his tone making the angel cringe with frustration.

“Well, if you must know, it was the crepes.” Sitting back down on his own stool and trying not to jangle the heavy cuffs around his wrists, he said, “You can’t get decent ones anywhere but Paris.” Aziraphale hesitated a moment before adding, “And the brioche.”

“So you popped across the Channel during a revolution because you wanted something to nibble?” asked Crowley incredulously. “Dressed like that?”

Straightening slightly, Aziraphale said, “I have standards. I’d heard that they were getting a bit carried away over here, but—”

As the angel stood back up, Crowley said, “Yeah, this is not getting carried away. This is cutting off lots of people’s heads very efficiently with a big head-cutting machine.” He sighed tiredly. “Why didn’t you just perform another miracle and go home?”

And now the embarrassment was back. Aziraphale could barely look at him as he spoke. It wasn’t exactly his finest hour, especially when it managed to get him into this mess.

“I was reprimanded last month.” When Crowley raised an eyebrow, Aziraphale continued, “They said I’d performed too many frivolous miracles. Got a strongly worded note from Gabriel.”

With a casual tone, Crowley said, “Well, you’re lucky I was in the area.”

“I suppose I am,” he agreed. “Why are you here?”

Crowley looked away. His face was towards the barred window, where the guillotine was frozen along with every mortal being within range. But with his dark glasses, there was really no way to know for certain what he was staring at.

“My lot sent me a commendation for outstanding job performance.”

Aziraphale rose to his feet, stunned and infuriated by what he was hearing. It couldn’t be true. It didn’t make sense. This sort of bloodbath was nothing like Crowley’s work. Not in the thousands of years they’d known each other.

Oh, he wasn’t above some more personalized vengeance on a human who deserved it. And mass levels of chaos, mischief, and subtler evils were well within his capabilities. But this wasn’t his style.

“So all this is your demonic work?”

It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t like Crowley at all.

 _He’s a demon_ , whispered the loyal and obedient part of him. _You can’t truly trust them. Everyone knows that. You’ve only been fooling yourself. You have a mutually beneficial arrangement. He’s not your friend._

It couldn’t be true. This wasn’t like Crowley.

The internal conflict only lasted a moment. Crowley had already turned back towards Aziraphale and gave the tiniest shake of his head.

“No. The humans thought it up themselves. Nothing to do with me.”

Crowley snapped his fingers and the heavy chains fell off the angel. The doubts scampered back to the darkest corner of Aziraphale’s mind where they belonged. Of course Crowley didn’t cause this madness. He wasn’t that cruel. Aziraphale knew better than that.

Rubbing his freed wrists, Aziraphale said, “Well, I suppose I should thank you for the, uh, rescue.”

“Don’t say that,” said Crowley sternly, rising to his feet. “If my people hear I rescued an angel, I’ll be the one in trouble. And my lot do not send rude notes.”

Yes, that was the crux of the matter. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter how much they enjoyed each other’s company. It didn’t matter that he rather liked his companionship. They were on opposite sides and there would be grave consequences if anyone learned about them.

Aziraphale liked Crowley. But that’s all. They couldn’t be friends. He couldn’t care about him like that. Not truly. It wasn’t proper. And it wasn’t like Crowley could feel any true affection towards him. He was a demon. And demons couldn’t feel love, including the love of an actual friendship. Everyone knew that. It wasn’t Crowley’s fault; it was simply a fact. But even their level of pleasant and familiar companionship held a level of danger that threatened Crowley far more than it did Aziraphale.

They weren’t friends. He didn’t feel anything for Crowley beyond a familiar and comfortable fondness for the demon. Heaven was right about everything and knew exactly what it was doing.

Aziraphale was actually very talented when it came to denial and self-delusion on a massive scale. This was not necessarily a good thing.

Sometimes it was better to be honest about your feelings, at least with yourself. Perhaps you cannot share or show those emotions for a variety of reason, but it is better to acknowledge them on a personal level. Refusing to accept or identify feelings can have dire effects beyond yourself.

Smothering, denying, and lying about the extent of them to yourself can, as a completely random example, prevent those emotions from counting as true reciprocation for the purposes of a curse.

“Well,” said Aziraphale calmly, “anyway, I’m very grateful. What if I buy you lunch?”

Cocking his head towards the angel’s outfit, he asked, “Looking like that?”

Aziraphale took a quick look down at them himself. He was rather fond of the ensemble. It would be a shame to lose them. But on the other hand, they’d already caught the wrong attention once and it would be easier to enjoy a pleasant meal with his companion if they didn’t have to waste time with another rescue attempt in the middle of it.

He sighed tiredly. Then, with a quick gesture, he changed clothes with his former executioner. The man was a rather vile person already. Perhaps Aziraphale could consider his removal as a kindness for the others in the city.

As he stepped closer to Crowley and noticed his expression, he said, “Well, that barely counts as a miracle, really.”

Crowley snapped his fingers and the flow of time resumed, though the demon added a slight discouragement to ensure that no one noticed them. They watched for a few moments as the very confused executioner was taken away by the guards, about to face the same fate that he’d enjoyed delivering to hundreds of people.

Leaning closer to Aziraphale, Crowley muttered, “Dressed like that, he’s asking for trouble.” Sparing a final glance at the man, he turned his attention back towards Aziraphale and asked, “What’s for lunch?”

Thinking for a moment or two, Aziraphale smiled excitedly and suggested, “What would you say to some crepes?”

* * *

Crowley loved Aziraphale. He truly did. But he honestly wanted to wring the angel’s neck.

He shouldn’t have been there. He should have been in London. Aziraphale had his nice and cozy bookshop in a country where they _weren’t_ slicing people’s heads off in mass numbers. He should have been safe. Not locked up in the Bastille, waiting to be executed because he wandered into Paris dressed as a mildly old-fashioned aristocrat because apparently escaping without discorporating counted as a frivolous miracle. The fact he remained calm was certainly a testament to his self-control and the reassurance that at least he’d tracked down the angel before he got hurt.

But he still wanted to strangle the angel. Gabriel too, but mostly Aziraphale.

…No, he wanted to strangle Gabriel more. But that was on general principle.

He knew that Aziraphale wasn’t perfect. He was stubborn, he worried too much, and trusted Heaven blindly despite all the evidence why that was a dumb idea. Aziraphale refused to question them even on the most disturbing policies and orders, which was at least a reasonable decision since Crowley knew how that could lead to problems and the demon was perfectly content to question things enough for both of them. Aziraphale clung to certain beliefs even as he did his best to loophole around almost anything. And those beliefs tended to lead to some rather painful comments from the angel, innocently insensitive despite his kind heart. Every time that Aziraphale denied their friendship in front of whatever human had made a comment, even though Crowley knew it was meant as a form of protection from him, hurt more than the demon cared to admit. And of course, Aziraphale had a weakness for human comforts and indulgences like his books and delectable foods even to the point of ignoring common sense or self-preservation.

Which was why Crowley needed to perform a last-minute rescue. Aziraphale would rather risk his neck than settle for lesser crepes. It was ridiculous, but completely and utterly _Aziraphale_.

But even with his wonderful flaws, Crowley wouldn’t exchange his angel for anyone else. And if he was honest with himself, he rather enjoyed performing those dramatic last-minute rescues. They felt nice. He enjoyed that look on Aziraphale’s face when the demon charged in to save the day. And it wasn’t as if anyone got hurt.

Okay, the executioner got hurt, but nobody got hurt that anyone would actually care about.

They managed to find some of the crepes that Aziraphale wanted, sold far enough away that they wouldn’t need to listen to the fall of the blade, the shouts of the crowd, or the screams of the waiting victims. Mass executions tended to spoil the appetite. But they found a nice place off the beaten trail that made the angel light up. And while Aziraphale claimed to be treating him, the angel ended up eating most of the crepes while Crowley drank and watched his delighted expressions.

He’d felt it tightening, the sharp and painful pressure in his essence. He’d felt it worsening from the moment that he’d paused localized time and saw Aziraphale in that cell, dressed in his expensive finery and wearing chains. He’d felt the plants growing the moment that Crowley had heard his name spoken with relief and excitement. But he knew better than to react to the familiar discomfort.

But as Aziraphale described how his bookshop recently acquired a few new volumes that he’d been searching for and smiled warmly in a way that Crowley always loved, something shifted. A sharp and stabbing pain, far worse than normal, hit out of nowhere. While he managed to stifle most of his reaction, Crowley couldn’t hide the way he hissed quietly and flinched.

“Crowley?”

The spike in pain didn’t lessen, but he managed to give Aziraphale a reassuring smile. He didn’t like lying to him, but Crowley was a demon. And that meant he could bluff.

“I’m fine. Bit my tongue, that’s all,” muttered Crowley, bringing his wine glass back up to halfway hide his face as he took a small sip. “But we need to get you back to London and your books. Before someone else tries to cut your head off. And I’ve got a project this afternoon.”

“Oh,” he said uncertainly, “what are you working on?”

Trying not to grimace, Crowley said, “Nothing impressive. But I’ve got to finish soon. Did appreciate lunch though. Tasty crepes. Not worth a beheading, but…”

He shrugged before beginning the difficult task of coaxing the angel towards the closest sea-worthy vessel in the area that would take him back to London, regardless of whether or not that was the original destination. Crowley knew that the abrupt change in behavior would make Aziraphale suspicious. His last glimpse as he nearly shoved the angel onboard made it obvious that he was worried. But Crowley couldn’t help his almost abrasive manner. He needed to get away from Aziraphale and get him somewhere safe. He needed the angel safe so he could spare a moment for himself to figure out what was wrong.

Pain was normal for his true form now. It was to be expected. He was used to it. But this was new pain. And new pain never meant anything good.

Finding a dark corner away from sight where he wouldn’t be disturbed, Crowley turned his attention inwards towards his true form. He never liked Looking at himself like that anymore. Too many blinded and ruined eyes, torn and missing scales, and deep scratches that constantly bled dark ichor. Large sections were completely hidden by the brambles and flowers. His coils hadn’t been able to move at all for over a century, which felt particularly wrong. He didn’t enjoy witnessing the accumulated damage. But he needed to keep track of his condition. And he needed to know what was causing the new sharper pain.

He found the new flowers easily. The almost-fluffy yellow flowers— Acacias. _Secret chaste love. Concealed love_ — and the blue trumpet-shaped blossoms, the petals shaped to easily curl closed— Morning glories. _Love in vain. Affection. Coquetry_. The brambles curling and tightening around him, constricting his true form. Nothing that Crowley wasn’t prepared to See.

Then he found the source of the new stab of pain. Where one of his ruined eyes used to be along his dark coils, the sharp briars were digging in. Burrowing their way in as ichor dripped out. Growing under his scales.

Thorns and brambles, growing inside and out.

Crowley clenched his teeth in frustration. He should have expected this. He’d seen it happen enough times, most recently with Asmodeus and his fondness for a human woman named Sarah. That mess ended in the murder of seven husbands of hers on their wedding nights and the eventual demise of the Prince of Hell after a couple of centuries of nearly constant exposure to hellfire to combat the plants. Crowley knew how the curse progressed. He should have expected the briars to start growing into this coiled loops.

Every time that he didn’t think it could get any worse, he discovered that it could.

He hated spending time in Hell and tried to avoid it as much as possible, but he could find an excuse for a visit. There were a few isolated vents of hellfire that he’d found. A quick dip in the flames would help scorch away the plants some. The only downside was that the flowers would grow back within three weeks. A month, if he was lucky.

Until then, Crowley would have to endure it. There was nothing else that he could do. Except maybe remember how Aziraphale looked when he came charging in to save the day. At least he had that brief bright moment.

* * *

It was a beautiful day for a walk in St. James Park. Crowley knew that there were others making use of the lovely weather. He’d glimpsed when as he’d arrived at the duck pond. Young couples strolled by, their courting far enough along that they didn’t need constant chaperoning in public spaces. Older married people, settled comfortably into loving familiarity. Young children playing together, too young for their love to even take the form of a crush. All these people who could express themselves with words, with meaningful gestures, and with an elaborate flower language that deeply disturbed Crowley the first time that he heard about it.

Oh, Crowley knew that it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Not that he was a fan of rainbows due to the Flood… But he was familiar enough with human nature to know that there were plenty of these supposed loved ones wandering around who may be hiding darker secrets. Lies, betrayal, manipulation, abuse of a physical, mental, or emotional nature, or the seeds that may someday grow into flat-out murder. Humans were equally capable of extreme acts of good and evil.

But even if some of the happy couples and groups were mere façades, others were just as honest and loving as they seemed. Crowley knew being jealous was a useless waste of time. He was quite aware of that fact as he stood on the edge of the pond, his cane resting in his arms as his knuckles ached from how tightly he clenched it.

But letting his thoughts linger on the loving humans was easier than dwelling on the awkward request that he was planning to make. He wasn’t looking forward to it. But a few close calls and some rather uncomfortable questions from his bosses meant that Crowley couldn’t just forget about it. He needed to take some more drastic precautions.

Crowley is staring out across the pond when Aziraphale walks up next to him. He doesn’t turn his head, but he can watch the angel out of the corner of his eye as he takes off his hat and starts feeding the ducks with whatever tidbits that were miraculously inside it.

Keeping his eyes forward, staring out at the pond and the ducks, Crowley said, “Look, I’ve been thinking. What if it all goes wrong? We have a lot in common, you and me.”

“I don’t know,” said Aziraphale. “We may have both started off as angels, but you are Fallen.”

“I didn’t really Fall. I just, you know…” Crowley trailed off, bobbing his head in a vague gesture. “Sauntered vaguely downwards.”

Aziraphale continued to toss food towards the ducks in an almost flicking motion. It was a careful and deliberate gesture, pinching it between a couple fingers and a thumb before twitching his hand forward just enough to feed the greedy creatures. Crowley didn’t let the angel’s attempt to look busy dissuade him. He plowed forward.

“I need a favor.”

Aziraphale looked over at him even as Crowley kept his face forward. He needed to handle this carefully. He needed the angel to realize that this was a serious matter, but he didn’t want to worry Aziraphale too much either. There had to be a careful balance between the two.

“We already have the Agreement, Crowley.” He looked back towards the pond. “Stay out of each other’s way. Lend a hand when needed.”

“This is something else,” he said, keeping his voice calm and subdue, “for if it all goes pear-shaped.”

“I like pears.”

The hint of unease in his tone told Crowley that even if Aziraphale was trying to act oblivious, he was picking up on the fact that something was wrong. That whatever the demon was about to ask for would be a rather big favor.

“If it all goes _wrong_ ,” said Crowley, picking his wording more carefully so that the angel couldn’t pretend to misunderstand, “I want insurance.”

Aziraphale dumped the rest of the food out of his hat, letting it fall into the pond and on the ground near his feet. Then he carefully put it back on his head.

“What?” he asked.

Crowley, handing over the folded scrap of paper, said, “I wrote it down. Walls have ears. Well, not walls. Trees have ears. Ducks have ears? Do ducks have ears?”

He glanced around at the ducks scattered around the pond and those investigating the food that Aziraphale gave them. Crowley vaguely noticed that the angel was still. Too still. Unnaturally still for someone who was always shifting and his expression always changing in tiny ways. But Crowley didn’t focus on that as he spoke further.

“Must have. That’s how they hear other ducks.”

Crowley was rambling, getting sidetracked by irrelevant details. He knew that. But he shouldn’t be nervous as Aziraphale read the short note. It would be fine.

He knew how it would go. Aziraphale would hesitate, pointing out the dangers of stockpiling dangerous weapons like that. How Heaven and Hell would be upset if they found out. Using holy water and hellfire was always a dangerous move, threatening the uneasy holding pattern that both sides were in while waiting for the ultimate War. Maybe you could get away with it on the lesser important members, but if you picked the wrong victim in the hierarchy, it could set everyone off.

Aziraphale would worry and dither over the ways that it could go wrong. But then Crowley would reassure him the way that he always did. He’d sooth his frazzled nerves—

“Out of the question,” said Aziraphale abruptly, staring at him with a stunned and disbelieving expression.

Sparing him a quick glance before looking back over the water, Crowley asked, “Why not?”

“It would destroy you,” he said, glancing between the note and the demon. “I’m not bring you a suicide pill, Crowley.”

Wait, what?

Aziraphale was _not_ following the normal script. The angel shoved the paper back into Crowley’s hand.

“That’s not what I want it for. Just insurance,” he assured, pushing the note back.

Aziraphale took a small step closer. He stared firmly at Crowley even as the demon tried not to look at him. He was still busy trying to wrap his mind around whatever anxious logic was operating inside the angel’s brain.

“I’m not an idiot, Crowley. Do you know what trouble I’d be in if…” Aziraphale trailed off, glancing upwards worriedly as if expecting a thunderbolt to strike at any moment. Then, a little quieter, he continued, “If they knew I’d been… fraternizing.”

Crowley finally turned to face him. The word almost seemed to gut him. That’s… That’s what he…

“It’s completely out of the question,” continued Aziraphale, completely unaware of what he’d just done.

“Fraternizing?”

His head twisting in a vague gesture, Aziraphale said, “Well, whatever you wish to call it. I do not think there is any point in discussing it further.”

“I have lots of other people to fraternize with, angel,” he said, his voice sharp and tense.

“Of course you do.”

Aziraphale turned and started to walk away. Everything had gone wrong. Wrong is a way that Crowley couldn’t quite comprehend. But that didn’t stop him from snapping something sharp at the retreating figure.

“I don’t need you.”

Pausing only long enough to look back, Aziraphale said, “Well, the feeling is mutual. Obviously.”

He tossed the note vaguely at the pond as he stormed off. The fact that the paper caught on fire once it hit the water barely registered. Crowley just watched it happen.

“Obviously,” he repeated in a mocking tone.

What was wrong with him? How could Aziraphale even think that he was looking for a way to kill himself? When had he ever indicated that he would want that? Crowley had been slowly dying since they’d met and he’d never tried to find a faster escape.

And _fraternizing_. Thousands of years of knowing each other. Of countless meetings, of shared meals, of favors and creating their Arrangement, of Crowley loving him more and in deeper ways with every passing century. Thousands of years of hoping that maybe the angel would at least trust him enough to consider him a friend. And Aziraphale dismissed all that history and their relationship by calling it “fraternizing.”

The word hurt more than it should have. Like a knife twisting in his gut. Aziraphale had denied their friendship before, but it was always to a third party. A lie to protect them. But now Aziraphale was denying it and there was no one else around. He was denying it to Crowley. It was nothing less than true and utter rejection.

Crowley’s chest ached as he took an unnecessary and choking breath. He’d loved Aziraphale for so long. From an initial crush to an unwavering friendship and a deep affection that burned brightly inside him. He loved Aziraphale and would love him until that love destroyed him. But Aziraphale would clearly never feel anything back. The angel would never see Crowley as truly a friend, let alone anything else.

Everything hurt as Crowley stalked his way back towards his residence, shoving past the happy couples who would now be a little less happy. His chest, throat, and eyes ached as anger fought with emotional hurt. No tears, but only barely. His knuckles nearly creaked with how tightly he gripped his cane, slamming it on the ground with each step. And the familiar and intense pain of his true form remained as his constant companion.

The sharp stabbing-sensation of briars continuing to spread under the black scales of his coils was easier to bear some days than others. Today wasn’t a good day for _that_ pain.

Everything hurt and he felt too exhausted to handle it.

Once the door closed and locked behind him, Crowley staggered towards his bedroom. Humans had come a long way from sleeping on the ground. Blankets, pillows, and proper beds were wonderful things. Soft and comfortable things. He needed that comfort. He wanted the comfort and soothing blankness of sleep. Ignoring and blocking out everything for a while sounded like a great idea, sinking into the numb state of unconsciousness.

But before he surrendered to the temptation, Crowley Looked inwards. He’d felt the fresh spikes of pain among the rest. Briars spreading further under his scales and into his dark coils. He knew that there were new flowers.

Flowers that he would be able to translate into proper meanings with floriography now. The similarities between the romantic flower language and his internal garden of doom was the type of thing that Aziraphale would have called ineffable. Mostly, Crowley found the coincidence disturbing.

He didn’t want to, but he Looked. And he found them.

Large, showy and bright yellow cup-shaped flowers— Yellow tulips. _Hopeless love. One-sided love_.

Drooping spike-shaped groups of small, red flowers— Love-lies-bleeding. _Hopeless love. Hopelessness. “Hopeless, not heartless.”_

Fragrant spike-like clusters of golden four-petal flowers— Wallflowers. _Fidelity in adversity_.

Too many flowers. Too many feelings that kept growing and developing. And he was tired of the pain. The pain from the curse. The pain of rejection. He was tired and just wanted to sleep. Sleep and forget for a little while.

Forget and escape the pain at least temporarily.

Crowley curled up under his blankets and threw up some wards, concealing and protecting his hiding place from humans. It wouldn’t keep Hell or any snooping angels from finding him if they tried, but no one mortal should be able to locate his residence. That would give him at least some peace.

Then he drifted off to sleep. And he didn’t wake up again for a long time. Not until decades had passed and the pain of growing things forced him to return to awareness once more.


	4. Spreading

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like we’re making progress. Depressing progress, but that’s still progress. It won’t be too much longer before we reach the start of the Apocalypse. We just have a few more emotionally-charged scenes.

Aziraphale experienced the drive back to the bookshop in a mild daze. But only a mild one because frankly, the entire thing was terrifying. London was dark because of the Blitz and the sheer speed of the automobile was frightening. Combined together, the journey felt rather disorienting and he couldn’t keep track of where in the city they were or what streets they were taking. But despite the terrifying ride, his thoughts kept returning to the destroyed church and the bag of prophecy books currently resting in his lap.

Crowley saved him. After decades of not seeing each other and with their last conversation ending in an argument that made the demon vanish as completely as if he _did_ obtain holy water somehow, Aziraphale never expected to see him again. He didn’t think that Crowley would ever forgive him for the way that they parted. And then Crowley came marching into the church to once again pull Aziraphale out of danger, as if nothing had changed from before.

Well, more like tap-danced his way into the church. Consecrated ground made his rescue a bit awkward. But even if he was limping slightly on his way back to his sleek black car, Crowley claimed that his feet didn’t hurt that much. He’d described it like bare feet on hot sand. Aziraphale would have expected far worse, but Crowley wasn’t the most demonic demon. Perhaps that explained it.

He wasn’t like other demons. That had always been clear, but that fact had never been as obvious and unavoidable as it was that night. Crowley always protected Aziraphale. And maybe that could be argued to be part of some type of long-term strategy that would benefit him. Like the Arrangement helped both of them in the long run. But Crowley saved his books. There was no reason to do that, to waste so much energy performing a demonic miracle in a church. No reason except to make Aziraphale happy.

Demons couldn’t love. They couldn’t truly care. Everyone knew that. And Aziraphale knew that was true because never once in six thousand years did he sense love coming from Crowley and he still didn’t. And since angels could sense love, that logically meant that there was no love coming from him. But since he wasn’t the most demonic, perhaps Crowley could experience something similar to affection.

That must be it. Not quite true affection, but as close as a demon could experience. A certain fondness. Crowley liked him as much as he was capable. That’s why he would agree to spend time with Aziraphale, why he tried to protect him, and even why Crowley would go to the effort to save the angel’s books.

Considered like that, it was actually rather… sweet.

Aziraphale shifted awkwardly in his seat as the car slowed fractionally to go around some rubble. He’d missed Crowley over the last several decades. And from the moment that he saw Crowley enter the church to keep the angel from discorporating, it rekindled a warmth that he hadn’t realized was missing. A warmth that only seemed to strengthen when Crowley revealed the intact books.

He was… fond of Crowley. Even with the inherent dangers, Aziraphale was rather fond of him. Any acknowledgment of their even being cordial with each other was dangerous for both of them, but especially for Crowley. And Aziraphale would never want to risk him. But Crowley had risked so much that night: walking across consecrated ground, facing down Nazis, redirecting a plan to bomb them and sparing the books while trusting Aziraphale to preserve their physical bodies. If Crowley could take risks and trust Aziraphale like that, then perhaps he could admit that he... that he…

Friends.

They were _friends_. He felt friendship towards Crowley. That was absolutely what Aziraphale felt. That was a reasonable and rational way to feel. Anything different or more didn’t make sense. Which was why Aziraphale didn’t feel anything other than the friendship that he was now admitting. Besides, it would be useless to feel anything else or different when he knew that Crowley couldn’t even feel the love and affection of friendship, let alone any other form.

They were friends and that was risky enough to admit. Anything else that might exist was crushed and buried away before Aziraphale could acknowledge it.

He had no idea how close that he’d just come to sparing Crowley a great deal of pain and suffering. For a moment, he’d almost reached it. But even if Aziraphale could admit to a _fraction_ of what he felt, he’d denied the rest. He couldn’t be completely honest with himself. And as long as he could not embrace his feelings fully, Aziraphale was not _truly_ returning Crowley’s love. And curses are not known for being lenient.

The car came to a stop, jolting the angel out of his dazed state. He blinked a few times before realizing that they were parked outside the bookshop. Crowley leaned on the steering wheel and stared at him through his sunglasses.

“Been a bit quiet. You sure you’re all right there, angel?” asked Crowley, shifting slightly as he stared him down.

Aziraphale swallowed, gave a nod, and said, “Of course. I appreciate all your help this evening. You didn’t need to go to so much trouble on my account.”

“I was in the area,” he said with a shrug. “Wasn’t that much trouble.”

They both knew that was a lie. A very poorly done lie. A demon walking on consecrated ground was unpleasant enough, though clearly not as painful as Aziraphale had always expected. But a demon attempting to perform a demonic miracle in a church would certainly be a lot of effort on his part. Aziraphale suspected that he’d started redirecting the plane before he even set foot on the consecrated ground in order to make it work. That was the only reasonable way that Crowley managed it. Protecting the books would have likely taken all his concentration and available power.

So yes, it would have been a lot of trouble. Trouble and careful planning. And yet Crowley did it for him. Just thinking about it warmed the angel more.

He’d missed Crowley while they were apart. Aziraphale might have enjoyed himself during the last few decades, learning to dance and the art of sleight-of-hand magic and meeting several endearing humans. But he would have preferred to be doing all of that with Crowley. He’d missed seeing his friend.

“Would you like to come in?” asked Aziraphale. “I might have something stashed away if you’d like a drink and I, well, after everything that you’ve done, I could take a quick look to make certain the consecrated ground didn’t do any lingering damage.”

Shifting awkwardly, he said, “Probably not tonight. Got to deal with the paperwork. Not that they’ll complain. Dropping a bomb on a church will be easy to pass off as an evil deed. Might even make me look impressive.” Crowley shifted again. “But if you decide to try the secret agent thing again, invite me along as some proper backup and maybe we can get a drink after. Or maybe I could come around some time when neither of us are busy…”

Aziraphale smiled, his eyes darting down even as he hugged this bag to his chest. He liked the sound of that. Not just the idea of spending time with Crowley at some point in the future. Working together on the same goal, both of them.

A nice fantasy. But not one that would ever come true. Opposite sides and everything. There would always be limits. But just seeing him again…

“I may take you up on that offer,” said Aziraphale as he opened the car door. “Have a pleasant evening, Crowley.”

* * *

When the Bentley pulled to a stop in front of his current residence, Crowley sighed tiredly and let his head drop against the steering wheel. He groaned quietly even as a small smile tugged at his mouth. He couldn’t bring himself to move quite yet. But he couldn’t resist the faint grin either.

To be honest, the entire evening had been wonderful.

Crowley hadn’t seen Aziraphale in decades, even after waking up. It felt easier to keep his distance. But he kept tabs on him. Between his assignments from Hell and working as a spy to spread misinformation and chaos, Crowley poked around to see what was happening with Aziraphale. He kept track of his activities and the bright spark that told him the angel was close, alive, and safe. And when he first picked up hints of Nazis scheming and planning a double-cross on a certain local bookshop owner, Crowley didn’t waste any time.

It as nice. Getting to be the stylish, suave, and clever hero that saved the day with a quick quip and a smirk. Having Aziraphale look at him like _that_. It felt amazing and he savored every moment of the experience.

Except walking on consecrated ground. That part was less fun. Why in Hel— Why in Heav— Why in the _world_ did they have to have their meeting in a church?

He liked saving Aziraphale like that. He liked seeing him again. Talking to him. It reminded Crowley of how much he’d missed the angel. They used to go for longer stretches of time between meetings in the past, but now not seeing him for decades was awful. He didn’t want to go through that again.

It also apparently sparked another growth spurt though. Crowley could feel the increased pressure and pain from growing brambles creeping further and deeper. His true form was in constant agony and yet he could still feel the difference from new growth. But then, he’d been living like that for so long that he could barely remember a time where his true form _wasn’t_ in pain. At least it served as a decent distraction from his aching feet.

Well, he’d put it off as long as he could. Time to get moving.

Crowley practically slithered his way out of the Bentley and towards the building. As soon as he made it through the door, he snapped his fingers. The door locked, the blackout curtains moved across the windows, and the lights flickered on.

Not that he actually needed light to see. It just made things simpler. Just like he didn’t actually need the blackout curtains to avoid making his latest residence a prime target. He’d long since placed wards to deter any bombing attempts, ensuring that any that fell would be duds. The fact that the wards extended a reasonable distance and kept several of his neighbors safe too was merely a coincidence. He just didn’t want to get hit by shrapnel or trip over rubble.

He collapsed in the closest chair and started tugging at his shoe. Crowley at least possessed enough sense to wear proper footwear before walking on consecrated ground. A slight layer of insulation between him and the floor that wanted to cause spontaneous demonic combustion. And it must have worked at least a little. Otherwise his feet would probably hurt worse. The dull ache was annoying enough by itself.

Crowley pried his shoes off and peeled away his dark socks, letting them fall in a messy pile on the floor. Then he stared uncomprehendingly at his feet. What he was looking at didn’t make sense. It didn’t match up with what he could feel.

He’d expected some mild redness, like a sunburn. Something to explain the dull ache that remained. Instead, he found his flesh red, raw, and blistered. From his burnt and oozing soles to the red marks that reached halfway up his shins. An experimental twitch of his toes broke another blister and tore a bit more of his scorched skin. Crowley felt mildly nauseous staring at his abused appendages. Demons were _supposed_ to be used to seeing horrible things, but it was always a bit worse when it was yourself and Crowley never claimed to be particularly good at the gruesome torture bit of the gig. And yet despite everything that he was looking at, his feet still only felt like they were aching.

The ragged sound that came out of Crowley could almost be considered a laugh. Clearly the constant agony deep in his true form was throwing off his entire sense of scale when it came to pain. Because a dull ache was _not_ what he should feel when his feet looked more like burnt sausages than important body parts.

Another flicker of power and a flat basin of water appeared on the floor in front of him. He was fairly certain that demonic miracles weren’t going to heal damage from consecrated ground. Or at least, it wouldn’t heal his feet very effectively. He was going to be stuck with the slow method. He could try wrapping them up later. For now, Crowley slid his feet in the cool water, hissing slightly at the sensation.

Important future safety note. Walking on consecrated ground was a bad idea. Definitely something to avoid from now on.

Crowley leaned his head back as the water slowly numbed his feet. He tiredly dragged his sunglasses and hat off before letting them tumble to the ground. Then, draping his arm across his face, he reluctantly turned his attention inwards.

It was getting harder to Look at his true form. Most of his eyes on that level were useless by now. Too many of them were completely gone. Empty and ruined sockets, constantly oozing and bleeding ichor as briars grew in and out through them. Burrowing inside his coils before emerging somewhere else. And most of his remaining eyes were covered and hidden under brambles and flowers, blocking his Sight. Only a small handful could See anything anymore. A couple more years and Crowley would lose even that much.

But he could see enough for now. He could make out some of the newest flowers in the garden trying to kill him. Two new species. Both of them in shades of blue.

Five blue petals; four upswept or fan-shaped petals with two per side, and one broad, lobed lower petal pointing downward— Blue violets. _Faithfulness. Love_.

Small flowers, also with five blue petals, but flatly-faced— Forget-me-nots. _True love. Unrequited love. Faithfulness. Remembrance_.

More beautiful and meaningful flowers growing into his true form. Honestly, if he could collect them all in a bouquet, the different species would look quite striking together. But he would be lucky to survive another century at this rate. Maybe one hundred fifty years if he was careful and found some human children to bond with.

Not that there were many kids left in London at the moment. They’d been shipped out to the countryside for their own safety, packed into trains and sent out to live with strangers where they wouldn’t end up as collateral damage. Crowley couldn’t take credit for the whole idea of Operation Pied Piper, but he might have been involved in making certain that all the right people agreed to it and it was put into motion. He told Hell that he was tearing apart families and causing emotional suffering to children and parents alike, but he just honestly hated seeing kids hurt.

But it did have the side effect of making it really hard for him to slow down the growth. He couldn’t bond with the local children. He couldn’t love and adore them. And they couldn’t care about him in return, pruning the flowers back with their honest and open affection. Because they weren’t around anymore. They had gone somewhere safe.

He didn’t regret it though. Crowley still refused to accept it when kids were killed. And sending them out of the city was just a larger scale version of sneaking them onto the Ark.

Crowley shifted his arm slightly, covering his eyes with the limb and blocking out the light. He was going to get stiff if he stayed sprawled in the chair like that for much longer. He should have stumbled a little further until he found a more comfortable piece of furniture. Crowley wasn’t exactly eager to try walking again, even if his feet didn’t hurt that much. He knew how bad they looked now and he wanted to keep them soaking in water a little longer.

Plans. He should do some planning. He wasn’t lying earlier; he would need to fix up a report for Hell. And he would need to figure out what the human method of treating burned and blistered feet might be. Later, he could make another trip over to the pile of rubble that used to be a church. There might be a nice souvenir among the destruction. He wanted to remember his dramatic and impressive rescue. He wanted to remember the way that Aziraphale looked at him when he arrived to save him from a bunch of Nazi halfwits.

And maybe he could investigate the way the church kept a font of holy water out in the open like that. Easily accessible as long as you didn’t have to worry about the damage from consecrated ground. With a little planning and some precautions, Crowley could get some holy water without involving Aziraphale. There would be no chance of the angel getting in trouble with Heaven. No risk for him at all. Aziraphale shouldn’t have a problem with that and he was hopefully over whatever crazy idea made him think that Crowley wanted to use holy water on himself.

…And if Aziraphale still thought they were fraternizing and nothing more, then he would accept that. It would hurt, but pain wasn’t exactly new. And he didn’t want to squander any more time with the angel. Whatever Aziraphale wanted would be enough.

Crowley tried to do a little planning as he sat there, feet aching and his true self bleeding ichor and agony. But mostly he just kept repeating the entire evening in his head. Every word. Every gesture. Every facial expression. He just kept thinking about Aziraphale. Just remembering everything about the angel that evening brought back that smile from before. The small and persistent smile and the familiar warmth that Crowley cherished.

* * *

Despite a rather strange conversation with a particularly strange man who claimed to have a strange witchfinder army at his disposal, Crowley was willing to call the late meeting a relatively straightforward and successful one. He’d hired three humans and paid them just enough to get them interested while promising plenty more money for when they completed to job. All of them seemed willing to do the job. Not that he’d exactly explained what they would be stealing yet, but he would get to that part and the safety measures that he needed them to follow soon enough.

Crowley desperately hoped that they followed the safety measures. He didn’t want to die because one of them spilled the stolen holy water on him.

He could have arranged a meeting closer to his flat, but he’d chosen to stage the upcoming theft in Soho and it made sense to meet his associates there. The church that he’d scoped out was closer to that neighborhood and Crowley was familiar with the area. After Aziraphale established his bookshop in Soho, the demon ended up spending a lot of time there. And there was something comforting about planning a heist in familiar surroundings.

Though they’d certainly changed over the decades. There were far more people out after dark now. And there didn’t used to be so many electric lights and neon signs. That’s the thing about humans. They were always coming up with new ideas and moving forward. And they seemed to be changing even faster in more recent times. As if the entire species instinctively knew that they were running out of time as Armageddon gradually approached and humanity wanted to get as much done as possible before that point.

Crowley crossed the street to where the Bentley was parked and waiting. And he knew that the car was empty when he opened the driver’s side door. But by the time Crowley sat down, a glimpse of something pale caught his eye. He turned to find Aziraphale sitting in the passenger’s seat.

The angel using a miracle for short-ranged teleportation? That was certainly unexpected. Both because of how frivolous of a miracle that would be and because teleportation over any distance beyond what you could see was unreliable at best. Everything about the act was out of character for Aziraphale.

He turned to look at Crowley with an expression that made something in the demon squirm. Aziraphale seemed so uncertain. Uncomfortable. Resigned.

“What are you doing here?” asked Crowley.

Turning to stare out the windshield, he said, “I needed a word with you.”

“What?”

Sounding mildly insulted, he said, “I work in Soho. I hear things.” Aziraphale looked towards Crowley slightly. “I hear that you’re setting up a… _caper_ to rob a church.”

He doesn’t say a word, but Crowley looked away. He did suspect that Aziraphale would eventually hear something about his plans. Maybe part of him _wanted_ the angel to know. Crowley knew that Aziraphale wouldn’t approve of him robbing a church on principle. But Crowley couldn’t let this drop. He needed that insurance in case Hell got too curious and at least this way wouldn’t involve the angel. Everyone would get what they wanted.

“Crowley, it’s too dangerous,” he continued. “Holy water won’t just kill your body. It will destroy you completely.”

Looking back towards Aziraphale, he said, “You told me what you think one hundred and five years ago.”

Suicide pill. Trouble. Fraternizing.

Crowley knew where he drew the line. He accepted it. If this was the line that Aziraphale couldn’t cross, then he would work around it and find the solutions himself. He didn’t need another lecture.

“And I haven’t changed my mind.” Aziraphale swallowed before shaking his head slightly. “But I can’t have you risking your life.”

Crowley looked away again. It wasn’t that much of a risk anyway. He’d already survived millennia longer than he should have.

“Not even for something dangerous,” he continued reluctantly. “So…”

Aziraphale trailed off briefly as he reached down for something, curiosity making Crowley look. He pulled up a thermos. An ordinary thermos with a tartan pattern. But he handled it carefully, his hands holding gently and moving slowly as if the thermos might shatter… or as if it contained something extremely dangerous.

“You can call off the robbery.”

Crowley stared, glancing between the thermos and Aziraphale as realization slowly sank in. He knew what the angel was holding. And that realization stole away his voice.

Aziraphale slowly handed over the thermos. Not just careful, but reluctant.

“Don’t go unscrewing the cap,” he said, his voice soft and resigned.

Crowley reached over with both hands, one taking the lid and the other the body of the thermos. Holding them both together and ensuring that there would be no chance of dropping or spilling anything. Crowley treated the container with exactly the respect and caution that it deserved. He pulled it back towards himself slowly and stared at it for a moment, trying to wrap his head around it.

Holy water. Aziraphale was giving him holy water. Why is he giving Crowley the holy water? He thought that Aziraphale would be in trouble with Heaven if he did something like this. Why isn’t he mentioning that? Unless…

Unless that literally had nothing to do with his initial refusal at all, despite Aziraphale’s remarks about getting in trouble. Despite his remarks about fraternizing. It was never about that. It was always about the fear of what would happen to Crowley.

The demon had focused on the pain of “fraternizing” while Aziraphale’s fear was always centered on “suicide pill.” And he still held that fear. Crowley could see it in his face. But he was facing that fear because he believed that this was somehow less risky. Because he knew that Crowley would get the holy water either way, but at least now he wouldn’t risk his life in the actual attempt.

“This is the real thing?” he asked, unable to think of anything else to say in that moment.

Voice quiet, still resigned, and full of regret, Aziraphale said, “The holiest.”

Crowley glanced at the thermos again. There was a decent amount of liquid inside. He could feel the weight of it. Enough to destroy several demons if he was clever about it. Or enough to erase his own existence within seconds. He didn’t specify how much holy water that he wanted. Not back then. Did Aziraphale give him so much because he wanted to ensure that if Crowley did use it as a suicide pill, it would be over quickly and hopefully wouldn’t give him much time to suffer?

Crowley had messed up. Should have explained himself better. Made Aziraphale stay that day and made certain that the angel understood that this was never meant to be used on himself. That it wasn’t meant as an escape or whatever he apparently thought. He should have taken Aziraphale’s fears seriously instead of assuming it was a fleeting worry.

He would never leave Aziraphale on purpose. Not like that. He loved the angel too much.

Looking back at the angel, he asked quietly, “After everything you said?”

Aziraphale gave a shaky nod, staring out the windshield. As if he can’t bear to look at Crowley or the thermos. As if he would break if he had to see what he’d done or if he had to think about it.

Crowley slowly set the thermos down and out of the way. Then he turned back towards Aziraphale.

“Should I say thank you?” he asked, testing the waters.

Still unable to look at him, Aziraphale said, “Better not.”

The angel swallowed, the absolute picture of regret and resignation. Crowley had known him long enough to translate those two words and his expression into their full meaning. _No, of course not. Why do you think I’d want to be hearing that in my memory the day I find you dissolved in a puddle of black goo? What is wrong with you, Crowley?_ Because that fear still lingered. Because Aziraphale still worried that if Hell ever came for him, Crowley would choose a swift demise on his own terms rather than use it as a weapon.

Is that what Aziraphale would do if their roles were reversed? If he was the one asking for hellfire as “insurance”?

Struggling to find something to say to him, Crowley asked, “Well, can I drop you off somewhere?”

“No, thank you.” Glancing over for just a moment, Aziraphale asked in a tone that sounded a little closer to normal, “Oh, don’t look so disappointed. Perhaps one day we could… I don’t know. Go for a picnic.” He gave a small smile. “Dine at the Ritz.”

Then he finally looked at Crowley properly again. There was another silent message among those words. A request and a plea. _Don’t use the holy water. Please stay. I don’t want to lose you. Can we go back to how we used to be?_ Maybe Aziraphale didn’t love him, but he still wanted Crowley. And he wanted Crowley to stay. To stay and be safe.

“I’ll give you a lift,” he said. “Anywhere you want to go.”

Hesitating a moment, Aziraphale said in a regretful tone, “You go too fast for me, Crowley.”

And then he stepped out of the car. Crowley watched him leave before turning his attention back towards the thermos. He held it delicately in front of him, staring at the tartan pattern like it held answers to all the questions that he couldn’t bring himself to ask.

Such a small thing to be so deadly. Aziraphale was clearly terrified to let him have it. Afraid on a level that Crowley couldn’t even comprehend. But he handed it over. Even scared of what might happen, he gave Crowley the holy water and hoped that he wouldn’t use it. He _trusted_ that Crowley wouldn’t use it on himself.

It felt like… Maybe they weren’t back to where they were before the argument in the 1800s, but he felt like they were closer to that point again.

Sharp pain suddenly stabbed his chest, making Crowley abruptly hunch over the steering wheel with a hiss. The thermos ended up landing roughly on the passenger’s seat while thankfully remaining sealed. He fumbled and clawed at his chest as he winced. Crowley knew that he didn’t need to breathe, but the abrupt pain and an uncomfortable sensation of _something_ wrong pressing inside set off a coughing fit.

He coughed roughly as he sat there, half-curled over his steering wheel. His body shook with the effort and the back of his throat gained the faintest taste of something metallic. He couldn’t seem to stop coughing; he couldn’t concentrate enough to make his body obey. Then Crowley wasn’t just coughing. He was coughing something up.

Crowley caught the round, flat, and moist things in his hands. And after a few more minutes of ragged coughing, his body began to relax. The pain didn’t fade. The uncomfortable sensation of something foreign in his chest didn’t ease. But the coughing slowed and then stopped.

First, he directed a small healing miracle towards the new cuts and scratches in his lungs. Healing his physical body was easier than attempting to fix damage to his true form. Even most angels tended to struggle with that. Crowley managed to at least stop the bleeding. Then he reluctantly opened his eyes and looked at the damp objects in his hands.

Delicate, soft, and round flower petals. Three of them. He recognized the species easily, but they were a darker shade— Dark pink roses. _Thankfulness_.

Crowley stared silently at them. He was coughing up flower petals. The curse had progressed to the point it was invading his physical body because it had crowded his true form too much. He was reaching the final stages.

It wouldn’t be much longer.

He knew that he should drive back to his flat. Find somewhere safe to store the thermos. Contact the humans and let them know the job was off. But the Bentley stayed parked as Crowley wiped away the forming tears. He stayed there, leaning forward to rest his forehead against the steering wheel.

“Well, angel,” he whispered shakily, “I wanted to tell you something. You won’t believe me, but I love you. I’ve loved you since the day we met. And I know that you don’t love me back, but I love you so much. But I’m not going to be around much longer. It isn’t your fault. It has nothing to do with the thermos or anything. I promise that none of this is your fault.” Crowley swallowed roughly. “It’s my fault. My stupid feelings did this. And _my_ feelings aren’t your fault. I’m sorry, angel.” His voice came out as broken croak. “Maybe if you… Maybe if I told you and… If I told you, maybe…”

He trailed off. Telling Aziraphale wouldn’t solve anything. It would only make both of them miserable during what little time that Crowley had left. And even if he told the angel everything, explained how the curse worked and the strange loophole that he’d found on how to counteract it, that wouldn’t help. Aziraphale would try to save him, but it wouldn’t work.

Crowley knew by now that love wasn’t something that could be forced. You couldn’t make yourself love another just by trying really hard. And the angel would try. He would try everything to stop the inevitable. Aziraphale would try to love Crowley back and would be heartbroken when he couldn’t save him.

It wasn't fair for anyone. But then, why should it be? Curses weren't meant to be fair. Curses were meant to cause suffering and death.

Telling Aziraphale what was happening wouldn’t solve anything. Crowley would still die in pain as briars and flowers destroyed his true form and suffocated his physical body. He’d thought that he’d come to terms with his fate thousands of years ago, but clearly he hadn’t. Otherwise he wouldn’t be sitting in his car, struggling with tears and having imaginary conversations.

 _You go too fast for me, Crowley_.

He didn’t know if Aziraphale meant that he couldn’t handle any further conversation after his rather distressing evening or if it was meant on a larger scale. That maybe the angel wanted something more someday, that perhaps that he would accept that they could be friends. But it would take time. Time that Crowley didn’t have.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling something sting and rattle slightly in his chest. In the end, nothing had truly changed. The curse had been gradually destroying him from the moment that he met Aziraphale. It was always going to end this way. He’d always been existing on limited time. There was no reason to waste what remained of his life mourning over how little time was left now.

Crowley wasn’t going to squander his life. He had his holy water as insurance against Hell. They wouldn’t get the chance to torture or execute him early. And he had Aziraphale. Maybe the angel didn’t love him, but he would accept what Aziraphale could offer. He would enjoy Earth and spending time with the angel. And he’d gotten good at managing his problem over the millennia. He might be able to stretch things out for at least fifty more years.

Fifty years wasn’t much, but he would get to spend it with Aziraphale. He would get to spend it on Earth, enjoying the wonderful things that humans come up with and messing with them in a variety of entertaining ways. He wasn’t going to spend it hiding in hellfire, desperately fighting the inevitable like Asmodeus did. Crowley would make these last years count.

By the time Crowley sat back up, there were no signs that anything was wrong. He reached over carefully and moved the thermos to the back, just in case. Then he started the car and the Bentley smoothly pulled away. And if it didn’t quite match his preferred speed, none of the humans noticed. The vehicle still moved uncomfortably fast for the other motorists and pedestrians.


	5. The Beginning of the End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is so heartbroken about what Crowley is going through and desperately hoping that he’ll experience some relief soon. Well… I’m afraid to say that isn’t going to happen quite yet. They’ve got an apocalypse to derail.

They settled into a pattern. One similar to their old patterns from before their argument, but not quite. Crowley made certain that he was more cautious about his safety. And more importantly, he made certain that Aziraphale could see him being more cautious.

Crowley established several different secret rendezvous locations and gave them different code names. They made it easier to arrange clandestine meetings without anyone else knowing about it, even if they tried to eavesdrop. It also made him feel a little like James Bond. The code names and such did complicate things a bit and sometimes Aziraphale needed to be reminded which one was which, but they accomplished the important part. They let him show the angel that his fears about holy water and suicide pills held no merit. They showed that Crowley was taking his concerns seriously and he was trying to be more careful about his own safety.

The two of them were having lunches again. Lunches, dinners, trips to the theater, concerts, and even just feeding the ducks. It started out maybe once or twice a year, but Crowley gradually worked it down to every few months or so. They would meet up to discuss the Arrangement and maybe exchange a few assignments. Then they would spend the rest of the day having a nice time, just the two of them.

And he would get to see Aziraphale smile. He would smile and Crowley could bask in the wonderful warmth of his love for the angel.

But it wasn’t perfect. The plants taking up space in his circulatory system, slowly growing in his corporeal form, brought forth its own set of challenges.

There were a few advantages to being both a demon and a serpent when it came to managing his symptoms. Not needing to breathe helped, letting him stop breathing for long periods of time to avoid triggering a coughing fit when he was around Aziraphale. And when the briars tried climbing upwards from where they were nestled in his lungs and heart, treating his throat like a trellis, being able to open his jaw wider than humanly possible and having no gag reflex gave him a few options. With a pair of needle-nose pliers and a mirror, he could rip out the plants as much as possible from his throat. Then all he had to do was heal the damage from where the thorns and flowers tore away at him on the way out.

Getting rid of the taste of blood and sap was a little harder.

He also started raising houseplants. Gardening turned out to be soothing, though he had a preference for nonflowering species and avoided any that grew thorns or sharp edges. He’d mentioned his houseplants to Aziraphale a few times, but he never identified their species. He just talked about how they were growing and the exact fate of those that disappointed him. Yelling threats at the houseplants turned out to be an amazing method of stress relief. And as an added bonus, his new hobby gave Crowley a perfect excuse when his condition worsened over the years and it got more difficult to hide the occasional traces.

_Oh, that petal? I was pruning my plants, angel. It must have gotten stuck to my shoe or coat._

It wasn’t perfect. Not even close. But Crowley had found a balance. The pain and pressure of the brambles and flowers growing into his heart, lungs, and throat was unpleasant, but not as bad as what he felt in his true form. He found projects to occupy his time and amuse him, like the M-25. He managed to keep Hell satisfied and distant enough not to notice his relationship with Aziraphale. And he regularly spent time with the angel. It wasn’t perfect, but it was close enough. Crowley would have been satisfied to remain like that for the foreseeable future.

Then Hastur handed him a basket with the Anti-Christ, shattering that careful balance and dragging the horrible truth into the light. Crowley realized that the world could easily end before he would. And somehow that felt wrong. Wrong in a visceral and horrible way.

He was going to die soon, but he wanted everything that he loved to continue. He wanted to world to keep going. He wanted humanity to survive and keep using their clever minds and curiosity to be completely brilliant, surprising, and somehow _more_ than Heaven and Hell combined. And he wanted Aziraphale to be out there in the world, enjoying everything that they both loved about Earth and _not_ suffocating from the restricting nature of Heaven. He wanted Aziraphale to be happy and have everything that he deserved. He wanted the angel to have the Earth, with all his earthly and human pleasures. That’s how it was _supposed_ to be.

He refused to accept the destruction and loss of everything that he loved. And Crowley came up with a plan to prevent it. He just needed to convince Aziraphale.

* * *

Part of her knew that she should have ended it as soon as possible. It would have been easy to just take the sturdy handbasket, spin it around faster and faster until finally letting go and letting it fly off into the forest at full speed. Let physics take over. But Crowley couldn’t do that to a baby, even if the infant was destined to end the world. Not to mention the fact that if Satan Junior ended up back in Hell because of the kid going splat or the Bentley getting in a front-end collision, Crowley would have to face some very sharp and pointy questioning.

Trying to influence the child towards a more neutral destiny was less dangerous. At least on the surface. Crowley knew that when the apocalypse failed to happen, she would still be the scapegoat. But the world would continue to exist and Aziraphale would be safe to enjoy it.

And if the plan involved her spending more time around Aziraphale, Crowley certainly didn’t mind.

They ended up picking between two different available roles within the household. Crowley briefly considered playing the part of the gardener, using her experience with plants to her advantage. But she ultimately thought it would be better to let the angel do that job. While Aziraphale liked children in theory, he didn’t have as much experience with them up close and on a personal level. Certainly not enough to be the primary caregiver for a kid.

Besides, Mr. Dowling was the type of person who didn’t think that man-shaped people could provide as effective childcare as someone who appeared more feminine. And Aziraphale didn’t like changing up his presentation. Not to that level. It took him decades to change his _clothes_. It would be simpler for Crowley to take the role of the nanny.

Raising Warlock was both easier and more difficult than she expected. And yes, she and Aziraphale were the ones raising the boy. The Dowling certainly weren’t putting in the effort or time themselves. They were barely part of his life. There was a reason why Warlock would always run to her or “Brother Francis” as he grew older.

Crowley’s only knowledge on how to be a nanny came from “Mary Poppins” and she used it as a template for both her outfit and attitude. A modest, practical, and strict appearance that was admittedly a little dated, though nowhere nearly as distracting and eyerolling as the ensemble that Aziraphale chose. And while certainly not as restricting as some of the dresses from previous centuries, the skirt and modest blouse gave her an excuse not to run after Warlock and play with the energetic child. Even without needing to breathe, running and other strenuous activities were a struggle with brambles weaving through the chambers of her heart and flowers crowding her lungs.

She was supposed to corrupt the child to ensure that he would start the end of all things, just like Aziraphale was meant to guide him towards a life of goodness. A perfect balance. But just because Crowley needed to instill certain lessons about crushing his enemies beneath his heels, tormenting the weak and vulnerable, and plunging the world into fire and death didn’t mean she couldn’t be gentle and kind towards him. He might be the Anti-Christ, but he was still a child. And she’d always had a soft spot for children.

Crowley knew that she shouldn’t. She should view the entire thing as just another job, albeit with dangerously high stakes. And she knew that if Plan A didn’t work and they couldn’t influence the boy, Plan B would be unbearable if she grew attached. It would be better if she could maintain some emotional distance. She knew that.

But she held the child, rocking him when he cried and wiping away tears. She soothed away the fears from nightmares. She kissed skinned knees and straightened messy hair. She told bedtime stories and sung lullabies, even if they were filled with violence and death. She played quiet and calm games, things that wouldn’t agitate the pain from the plants growing inside her. She taught him anything that Aziraphale didn’t teach the boy. She took care of Warlock, raising him and loving him.

Crowley couldn’t help loving the little boy. She loved him even as he grew more independent and didn’t always run to her for comfort or approval. She loved him through temper tantrums and sulking. She loved him despite knowing that he was the Anti-Christ and destined to take away everything else that she loved. She loved young and dear Warlock even as that affection left her briefly choking on new flowers.

Clouds of tiny white flowers— Baby’s Breath. _Everlasting love. Purity of heart. Innocence_.

Flowers with five small, white, round petals— Pear blossoms. _Lasting friendship. Affection_.

Solitary five-petaled yellow flowers— Cinquefoil. _Beloved child_.

But with Warlock’s parents uninvolved in his life, he only had his nanny and “Brother Francis.” The boy loved them, honestly and fully. And Warlock’s returned affection helped prune away the vegetation almost as soon as Crowley let her feelings take root. The few flowers that she coughed up, Crowley pressed them in books and tucked them in Warlock’s room on a high shelf among other cherished trinkets.

She’d started hiding a few pressed flowers in volumes in the bookshop too, choosing books that the angel rarely read and yet would never sell. But only the flowers that were meant for Aziraphale. The ones that held meaning specific for him. It seemed right to let him have them, any thorns and unnatural elements trimmed away. Crowley couldn’t give them to him directly, but she still felt like they belonged to him and thus snuck them in.

Eager and excited voices pulled her attention back towards the present and away from her mental wandering. Crowley watched from across the garden as Aziraphale showed Warlock where some birds had built a nest. The angel pointed up at the tree as he whispered encouraging things about loving all creatures and how he should treasure the world. Not that she could hear the actual words at that distance. Merely the tone of their voices. As much as she liked children, they always seemed more innocent and pleasant from a distance.

She knew that Aziraphale was working within his limits. He couldn’t directly go against the Great Plan. But he could excuse his actions as long as he was thwarting Crowley’s influences, theoretically canceling each other out to something neutral. That’s what they were aiming for. But they both knew it would be better if Warlock absorbed the angel’s lessons a bit more thoroughly than Crowley’s. If he loved the world enough, maybe he wouldn’t want to destroy it.

She watched them with a small smile. Aziraphale might look ridiculous in his disguise and Warlock might be the biggest threat against humanity and the Earth, but for now she could pretend everything was fine. She could watch the child that she adored and the angel that she loved more than anything.

It wouldn’t last. Warlock was seven years old now. There wasn’t much time left. His eleventh birthday would spell the end of this peace, one way or another. Either he would remain normal enough to avoid triggering the Apocalypse and they wouldn’t need to influence Warlock any longer or the world would end as foretold. Or she and the angel would have to do something that she knew would hurt almost as much as the thorns currently digging into her lungs.

Frowning slightly, Crowley used a small demonic miracle to heal the forming wounds. She knew they would be back. As soon as the briars started stabbing through again, she would end up with the exact same injuries. Loving Warlock and being loved by him in return bought her some time, but after a few years the flowers from his feelings for the angel had grown back. They always came back. But at least she could avoid coughing up blood for a little while by regular small healing miracles. That experience was annoying. Especially when she was around Aziraphale or Warlock and needed to hide the problem.

Crowley hoped that what they were doing would be enough. Warlock still seemed like a perfectly normal human child. Reality didn’t shift to match his expectations and whims. Well, no more than they did for any other boy born into a life of privilege. Perhaps he wouldn’t turn out to be the evil spark needed to start Armageddon. That was Plan A. She didn’t want to resort to Plan B.

She didn’t want Warlock to die.

But as much as she loved the little boy that she helped raise, she loved so many more things too. She loved her Bentley. She loved her houseplants. She loved fine wine, music, and all the clever and creative inventions that people came up with. She loved humanity and their curiosity and questions. And she loved Aziraphale with every piece of her existence. And if she had to choose between losing one person that she loved and losing _everything_ , Crowley knew what the rational and reasonable decision would have to be.

She would hate it. It would hurt. But she’d seen plenty of children that she cared about die, whether from natural causes during their childhood or from the mere passage of time. If it came to it, she could bear that loss.

She just wouldn’t be able to perform the act herself.

But maybe it wouldn’t come to that. That was the whole reason that she and Aziraphale were watching over Warlock. To guide him towards a more neutral and less destructive destiny. Crowley would just have to cling tightly to that hope. It was a long-shot, but the fact she still existed after six thousand years of loving Aziraphale was the result of the ultimate long-shot. Anything was possible.

* * *

The boy’s eleventh birthday came. The hellhound did not. There was only one conclusion.

Wrong boy.

On the one hand, neither of them would have to kill Warlock. On the other, Plan A was destroyed, Plan B would only work if they could _find_ the right kid in time, and there was no Plan C.

Crowley was wrong. His existence wasn’t going to end because of the curse. The current disaster of a mix-up was going to be his undoing.

Wa- _freaking_ -hoo…

* * *

Visiting the convent turned out to be a complete waste of time. All records burned and they ended up being shot with paintballs. And they were no closer to finding the location of the actual Anti-Christ. They had less than a week to find him and they didn’t have the slightest clue.

Crowley turned the headlights on out of habit from driving in London; he didn’t need them to see, but they made the humans more comfortable when he had them on and he didn’t bother to turn them off when he remembered that there was no one else driving on the small rural road in the middle of nowhere. But he didn’t bother to slow down. They drove away from the former convent at full speed, neither the narrow curves nor darkness making him hesitate.

After sitting quietly with only the low volume of his radio to break the silence, Aziraphale started shifting in his seat. His eyes were wide as he glanced around with an awestruck expression. He would look at Crowley next to him occasionally, but mostly his focus seemed to be on the surrounding countryside.

“There’s a particular feeling to this whole area,” he said. Aziraphale glanced briefly towards Crowley again. “I’m astonished you can’t feel it.”

Well, that was curious. Crowley silently breathed in as much as he was able with the flowers clogging his lungs, trying to pick up the scent of whatever the angel had detected. He reached out, but all he could really feel was the bright feeling of Aziraphale. Alive, safe, and close by. The only other method would be Looking, but that always ran the risk of Seeing too much of the surroundings and not being able to spot anything specific because Earth was teeming with so much life, powerful ley lines, and even the occasional psychic or witch. Not to mention that Looking wasn’t even an option for Crowley anymore with the state the curse had left his true form.

Crowley tried to find whatever the angel was noticing, but he couldn’t detect anything. Not a single trace. Nothing beyond the normal background sensations and scents of Earth. Nothing new since the moment that the Anti-Christ named his hellhound.

“I don’t feel anything out of the ordinary,” he said, hoping to prompt a further explanation.

“But it’s everywhere. All over here.”

Aziraphale stared out with the most overwhelmed expression. He didn’t speak. He just stared out. Crowley knew that he must be reaching out with his own senses, chasing the feeling and trying to identify it further.

“Love,” said Aziraphale after several moments of silence. He gave a nod of confirmation, looking more certain of himself. “Flashes of love.”

Crowley’s eyes widened behind his glasses as he turned his head towards the angel. His thoughts moved impossibly fast.

 _Wait, what, he feels it, after all this time he notices **now** , he can’t have, angels don’t sense love from demons, that’s why everyone thinks it doesn’t happen and its been six thousand years and it doesn’t make sense, why now, what changed, what happened, deny it, deny it fast or I’ll have to explain and it’ll be awful and we don’t have time, there’s no time and I can’t explain about the curse, it’ll hurt him and won’t fix anything and I’m being too quiet, say something fast, say anything right now_—

“You’re being ridiculous,” he said, his voice a lot steadier than his internal shrieking. “Last thing that we need right now is—”

A loud crash interrupted him as something slammed into the vehicle. In that same instant, a figure in dark clothes screamed and flipped over the front of the Bentley like she was trying out for the Olympics. Crowley was already slamming on the brakes as she disappeared on the far side. Both angel and demon stared in shock for a moment, silent and motionless.

“You hit someone,” said Aziraphale in a stunned voice.

Glancing towards him, Crowley said calmly and firmly, “I didn’t. Someone hit _me_.”

Aziraphale immediately scrambled out of the car. And Crowley metaphorically sighed in relief. He managed to avoid that disaster of a conversation. It only required someone crashing into them as a distraction.

* * *

The skies were already darkening with the approach of evening by the time Aziraphale was walking towards the bandstand. Not one of their favorite meeting spots, but relatively private at this time of day. The knowledge about the missing Anti-Christ that he’d gleamed from Agnes Nutter’s prophecies weighed heavily on Aziraphale as he approached. He knew that he should tell Crowley.

No. He _wanted_ to tell Crowley. But what he should do was tell Heaven. And he’d tried. But even bring up the hypothetical possibility that Warlock wasn’t the proper Anti-Christ and that the true boy was misplaced was barely believed and the other angels didn’t seem to care. Not enough to realize that this was a chance to prevent the War between Heaven and Hell.

Aziraphale just needed to find a way to explain it properly to them and making them realize the importance of his news. Because of course they would prefer the more peaceful option. What angel would actually want a War rather than just participating because it was a necessary and dreadful thing? Once he could make them see, it would all work out.

Every doubt or past observation to the contrary was firmly pushed down.

Crowley was already waiting at the bandstand as Aziraphale approached. He was leaning against one of the post, but walked towards the center of the bandstand as the angel drew close.

“Well?” he asked as the angel stopped. “Any news?”

“Um…” Shifting slightly on his feet, Aziraphale asked, “What– What kind of news would that be?”

Voice dripping with sarcasm, Crowley asked, “Well, have you found the missing Anti-Christ’s name, address, and shoe size yet?”

“His shoe size?” Grinning nervously and chuckling slightly as he spoke, he asked “Why– why would I have his shoe size?”

Crowley stared at him incredulously through his sunglasses and said, “It’s a joke. I’ve got nothing either.”

Of course, he hadn’t found anything. Crowley didn’t have the one accurate prophecy book in existence fall into his lap. Though to be fair, it did fall into his car. But without the prophecy book, Aziraphale would likely still be searching blindly for clues. There were billions of humans on the planet. Without help, neither of them had any chance of locating the boy within a few days.

But Aziraphale did receive help. An unexpected source of help when he needed it much.

“It’s the Great Plan, Crowley,” he said with the tiniest shrug.

How could either of them expected to understand it? They could only play the parts that they were given. And Aziraphale was given Agnes Nutter’s prophecies.

“Yeah,” said Crowley shortly before starting to pace around. Getting louder with each word until he was eventually screaming skywards, he continued, “For the record, great pustulent mangled bollocks to the _Great blasted Plan!_ ”

Shifting anxiously in place, he said gently, “May you be forgiven.”

Crowley turned back towards Aziraphale, no longer pacing. Or sauntering. Or whatever the proper description of his earlier movements might be.

“I won’t be forgiven,” said Crowley in a rather matter-of-fact tone. “Not ever. Part of the demon’s job description. Unforgivable. That’s what I am.”

As if that’s all that he could be. As if being anything different or anything more was impossible.

“You were an angel once.”

Like so many of their conversations, the words held far more meaning. They weren’t a simple statement of fact. They were filled with reassurance, the tiniest bit of hope, and a request. Aziraphale couldn’t even fully examine his own motivation to speak the words.

Maybe part of him knew that the only way for them both to survive what was to come was if they were on the same side. Together.

Perhaps if he explained all the good things that Crowley had done during the Arrangment, proved to the other angels that Crowley truly wasn’t like the other demons, and found a way to convince them to show mercy on a repentant and kind Crowley, Heaven could provide asylum. Pardon Crowley and give him protection if the War did come to pass.

Then that faint and barely-acknowledged idea tumbled away as the demon spoke.

“That was a long time ago.” Crowley shook his head before walking towards Aziraphale, stopping right in front of the angel and speaking softly. “We find the boy. My agents can do it.”

In a quiet and sharp tone, he asked, “And then what? We eliminate him?”

Crowley shifted in an uncomfortable way. It wasn’t quite a shrug, but it was close enough.

“Someone does. I’m not personally up for killing kids.”

“You’re the demon. I’m the nice one,” said Aziraphale, stating what must be an obvious fact. “I don’t have to kill children.”

Holding up a finger to interrupt, he said, “Uh-uh-uh—”

Mirroring the gesture with his own finger, Aziraphale continued to speak. He needed to keep going.

“If you kill him,” said Aziraphale, causing Crowley to stare in stunned confusion, “then the world gets a reprieve and Heaven does not get blood on its hands.”

The Ark. Sodom and Gomorrah. The Plagues of Egypt. Aziraphale shifted uncomfortably at the memories.

“Oh, no blood on your hands?” The angel almost winced at Crowley’s incredulous and sarcastic tone. “That’s a bit holier-than-thou, isn’t it?”

Defensively and growing a little louder, Aziraphale said, “Well, I am a great deal holier than thou. That’s the whole point.”

“You should kill the boy yourself,” said Crowley quietly, still in his face. “Holily.”

“I am _not_ ,” said Aziraphale before reining things in and speaking a little softer, “killing anybody.”

Aziraphale drew himself back a little and neither of them speak for a moment. They stare at each other silently, the weight of it all hanging over their heads. Then like always, Crowley was the first to start pushing again.

“This is ridiculous. _You_ are ridiculous. I don’t know why I’m still talking to you.”

“Well, frankly, neither do I.”

“Enough, I’m leaving.”

And then he did. Crowley actually turned and started to walk away. A moment of panic fluttered in the angel’s chest.

“You can’t leave, Crowley,” he called after him. “There isn’t anywhere to go.”

He stopped on the other side of the bandstand. Then Crowley turned back around, arms spread wide and his penchant for dramatics in full view.

“It’s a big universe.” Crowley gestured at his surroundings. “Even if this all ends up in a puddle of burning goo, we can go off together.”

Aziraphale stared at him for a moment. The words sinking in. The implications of what Crowley was offering. Longing for it. Longing for it in a way that he’d never imagined before.

“Go off together?” he repeated softly.

Just the two of them. Aziraphale and the person that he— that he was friends— that he was…

He took a shaky breath. Reminding himself of the facts. Of the impossibilities. They couldn’t have that. _They_ weren’t supposed to have _anything_.

“Listen to yourself,” he continued with regret.

In a serious tone, Crowley said, “How long have we been friends?” He spread his arms again. “Six thousand years.”

“Friends. We’re not friends,” he said: scared, dismayed, overwhelmed, and his voice betraying how close he was to tears. Aziraphale squared his shoulders, not looking directly towards Crowley as he continued, “We are an angel and a demon. We have nothing whatsoever in common. I don’t even like you.”

“You do,” he said instantly even as Azriaphale started to turn away.

Crowley denied it so easily. Dismissing everything that the angel had just said with two simple words. As if those two words could destroy all those differences, could dissolve Aziraphale’s loyalty to Heaven, and could erase the angel’s love for the world and humanity. As if those two words could make Aziraphale leave it all behind.

He couldn’t choose Crowley. Not over everything else. It wasn’t right.

Aziraphale turned back towards the demon. He marched forward a few steps, his movements aggressive and his voice louder and more forceful. Trying to drown out his own doubts in the process.

“Even if I did know where the Anti-Christ was, I wouldn’t tell you. We’re on opposite sides.”

Walking towards Aziraphale, voice low and firm, Crowley said, “We’re on our side.”

“There is no ‘our’ side, Crowley,” he shouted. Breathing hard, Aziraphale said decisively, “Not anymore. It’s over.”

The words seemed to echo in Aziraphale’s head as soon as he spoke them. Part of him kept crying out that it was wrong. That he didn’t mean it. That he didn’t want this.

But he had to do the right thing. And this was what a proper angel would do. Trust Heaven to fix the problem. He just needed to make the right people understand. They would take care of things. He would do this the right way and then there would be no war, no child-killing, and no abandoning the Earth to destruction.

Be a proper angel. Trust Heaven. Not a demon. It was the right decision.

So why did it hurt so much?

Crowley stared at him silently for several seconds, his expression not changing. Not from what Aziraphale could see past his sunglasses. But the angel could still see some indescribable shift. Like part of the demon was crumbling.

“Right,” he said finally. There was another pause as he reinforced his calm and cool façade. “Well, then…”

Crowley nodded with a small wordless sound and turned. As Aziraphale blinked and struggled to maintain his composure, the demon started walking away. Sauntering at a relatively brisk pace down the path and away from the bandstand.

Glancing briefly over his shoulder one final time, Crowley called out, “Have a nice doomsday.”

Then he kept going. Following the path that the angel couldn’t follow. Leaving Aziraphale alone on the bandstand, still struggling emotionally with the fallout.

He was alone. And he had no one else to blame.

* * *

Crowley managed to stay upright and steady as he walked away, acting as if Aziraphale _hadn’t_ just torn out his heart and shredded it. As if the angel’s complete and total rejection hadn’t broken something vital. As if he hadn’t watched Aziraphale pull away, discarding him while reasserting his loyalty to Heaven. As if Crowley didn’t feel like Aziraphale carved out part of him with that decision. Crowley walked away steadily as if everything wasn’t breaking, shattering, and unraveling in front of him. He made his retreat without letting his pain show.

He was good at hiding pain.

As much as he loved the world, humanity, and everything that they had to offer, Crowley would have given it all up as long as he could have protected Aziraphale and been with him a little longer. But it wasn’t enough. He would never be enough.

It hurt. Deep, sharp, and intense. Like someone sliced him open and tore everything out. Or they like they’d stuffed his chest with knives and broken glass. It hurt to know that everything was falling apart. His throat felt tight, on the verge of choking. And—

And something _was_ choking him.

Crowley staggered over, a hand reaching out to brace himself against the nearest tree as he gagged and choked. He didn’t need to breathe. He mentally screamed that he didn’t need to breathe, but the urge to fight against the feeling of something foreign creeping up made it hard to remember. His free hand fumbled at his mouth, fingers digging at the back of his throat in a desperate search of relief. He needed to get it out.

A frantic demonic miracle as he fell to his knees and he suddenly had a narrow pair of needle-nose pliers, which he immediately put to use. Half the time he ended up stabbing the back of his throat, but he could finally _reach_. Crowley yanked and ripped at the plants. The sturdy brambles resisted, but demonic strength let him break and tear away at them. His mouth filled with flowers, sap, and blood. He spat them out as he tried to clear away the new growth.

When his throat no longer felt clogged up and he’d healed the damage left behind, Crowley looked down at the blood splattered petals on the ground. Strange purple flowers with four petals and six long stamens that look like insect limbs— Spider flowers. “ _Elope with me_ ”— and more familiar tulips in a new shade— Red tulips. _Declaration of love_ — were speckled with droplets of blood and looked a little mangled, but identifiable.

He closed his eyes tightly. It was getting serious. Just one more thing that was falling apart.

Crowley opened his eyes as he slowly climbed back to his feet. A snap of his fingers and everything that he’d ripped out burned to ash.

Time. He could always convince Aziraphale when given the chance. The Arrangement. The holy water. Even the plan to try and stop the Apocalypse. The angel rejected all those ideas at first before coming around. He just needed time. A little time and Aziraphale would find an excuse to give in. He almost always agreed with Crowley if given enough time.

They didn’t have much time. But maybe Crowley could give him a little. Maybe just enough time for Aziraphale to come to his senses. Time for Aziraphale to settle and calm enough to let him come back.


	6. Burning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the pain of the fight at the bandstand, Crowley would probably assume that things couldn’t get any worse. Of course, those familiar with canon know for a fact that things can indeed get much more heartbreaking…

Knuckles aching as he gripped the steering wheel, Crowley pushed the Bentley as fast as he dared. Racing away from the puddle that used to be Ligur and from the trapped Hastur. Racing away from Hell’s fury and whoever they sent next, because they _would_ retaliate for his failure with the Anti-Christ and for destroying a Duke of Hell. Racing away from the knowledge that they would be coming from him and no amount of running would save him or his angel.

But he was also racing _towards_ Aziraphale. He could still hear the angel’s voice and the threats against Aziraphale echoing in his ears. They knew. They knew about the angel. He needed to get to the bookshop and get Aziraphale off the planet immediately, even if Crowley had to drag him there.

They were out of time. They were out of time and out of options. But if nothing else, he would keep the angel safe.

He hit speed dial and he heard the mobile ringing even as the demon tossed it in the passenger seat, but no one answered. Why wasn’t Aziraphale answering him? He just called a few minutes ago, raving frantically about knowing where the Anti-Christ was. He just called. Why wouldn’t he answer? Shouldn’t Aziraphale still be close to the phone?

Something was wrong. Crowley could feel it, almost like his skin was prickling with unease. Something was horribly wrong and he refused to admit it.

Then Crowley caught sight of the bookshop. He saw it just as he came within hearing range of the firetruck wailing. Flashing emergency lights and firefighters surrounded the building as flames flickered. Burning. The bookshop, _Aziraphale’s_ bookshop, was burning.

Why was it burning? Why didn’t the angel stop it before the fire spread?

An obvious answer clawed at his mind. Crowley choked it down. He needed to focus. Find Aziraphale. He needed to find the angel.

A human approached him as Crowley stepped out of the Bentley and started marching towards the bookshop. He barely paid attention to the well-meaning human’s stupid question even as he snarled out a response.

He had more important things to worry about. The angel could be inside, knocked unconscious or hurt. A concussion would make it hard to concentrate on using a miracle. That could be why he didn’t stop the fire earlier. Crowley clung tightly to that idea.

A snap of the fingers and the doors flung themselves open. Crowley marched forward towards the inferno even as the human yelled warnings. Another finger snap left the doors closing behind him, preventing those well-meaning and interfering humans from trying to drag Crowley out.

“Aziraphale!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.

He couldn’t quite run anymore, even if he wanted to. The curse had progressed too far to let him push his corporeal body like that. But he was almost running as he moved deeper into the bookshop, the familiar walls and shelves transformed into something that he couldn’t recognize.

“Aziraphale, where the Heaven are you, you idiot?” he called, his voice sounding frantic and almost angry to his ears.

The gramophone played a half-melted record that he could barely hear over the roar of the flames. Heat pressed back like a physical force. But it wasn’t enough to stop him. Regular flames lacked the sharp bite of hellfire or the healing warmth that it could offer demons who didn’t mind said sharpness. This was nothing that Crowley couldn’t handle.

 _Hellfire can spread out and fade into normal flames_ , hissed a vicious part of him. _What if this didn’t start as normal fire? They mentioned the angel earlier. They know about Aziraphale_.

Desperate to block out those thoughts, Crowley reached out. Trying to grasp the bright and familiar sensation of Aziraphale. The feeling that always told him where the angel was and if he was in trouble or hurt. Crowley reached for it. Again. And again. And again. But no matter how many times he reached for it, he couldn’t grasp the feeling. It wasn’t there.

He could _always_ feel Aziraphale. Why couldn’t he feel him?

“I can’t find you!” Crowley was almost spinning in place, growing louder and more desperate with every passing second. “Aziraphale, for God’s— For Satan’s— _Ah!_ ” Shouting in frustration and growing fear, he yelled, “For somebody’s sake, where are you?”

The closest thing to a response that he received was a powerful blast of water bursting through the window and knocking Crowley to the ground. Well-meaning humans strike again. Trying to extinguish the fire and salvage something from the flames. But getting hit by the water managed to force an agonizing realization to the surface.

Gone. Aziraphale was gone. Denial and hope burned like parchment, leaving ash in their wake. His angel was gone.

He didn’t know if someone burned Aziraphale with hellfire to destroy him and it eventually faded to regular flames. Or maybe they destroyed the angel first and used fire to cover their tracks. He didn’t know if it was Heaven, Hell, or both. All that mattered was that he was gone. Aziraphale was gone.

Gone and _dead_.

His glasses had been lost somewhere during the impact and Crowley couldn’t seem to wrestle up the mental strength to even try reining in his serpentine features. He sat up with a groan, his body soaked in water that was already steaming off.

“You’ve gone,” he said, feeling like he was on the verge of tears. “Somebody killed my best friend!”

Coated in ash, soot, pain, and fury, Crowley screamed curses at the top of his lungs. At Heaven, Hell, and everyone. They did this. Crowley was supposed to protect him, he’d _always_ protected him, but he’d failed. They took his angel and left a gaping wound in the demon behind.

Then he stopped yelling. He just sat there on the floor as everything burned around him, breathing hard and unable to care enough to move. Despite the raging inferno, Crowley felt cold, numb, and disconnected from himself. Like he was watching himself from the outside. There was physical pain, but it was too familiar and too distant for him to pay it much attention. It was the background noise of his existence. All that mattered was a deeper pain of loss, regret, guilt, and heartbreak.

This was worse than anything else. This was worse than anything. He’d rather go through the Fall again. He’d rather go through it a thousand times. Anything except this.

His eyes fell on the closest book, the only one not actively burning. A little scorched around the edges, but he could still make out the writing on the cover.

_The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter_

He remembered Aziraphale mentioning the book a few times over the last couple decades. He’d always wanted it for his collection. And something in Crowley refused to let an object that important to the angel burn. He reached over and picked it up.

He couldn’t save Aziraphale, but he could at least keep _something_ from being destroyed in front of his eyes. Even if it was pointless to do anything.

 _Everything_ was pointless. The world was ending, but it already felt like it was over. His angel was gone.

He’d failed Aziraphale.

It took a moment to find his glasses among the burning wreckage. But he managed, settling them on his face. Then Crowley gathered his strength to stand, still ignoring the actual pain in favor of the worse emotional agony. Then a demonic miracle opened the doors again. He forced his body to walk back outside, where rain was starting to lightly fall and thunder rumbled over the crackling of the flames.

Leave it to the weather to be dramatic.

Crowley peeled the sunglasses off, deciding that the cracked lens made them a lost cause after all. But his brief debate on whether it was worth the effort to litter when nothing really mattered ended when he staggered and then stumbled to the ground, the pain that he’d been ignoring making itself rather rudely known. The sharp aching pain of loss and grief encountered an overwhelming agony that engulfed his chest and was climbing up.

Not again. Not so _soon_. It was too fast. The whole mess was accelerating and getting worse.

On his hands and knees, Crowley was gagging and choking. He could already taste the blood as the plants tore away at him. His heart pounded in his ears, struggling to work with flowers and thorns crowding into every chamber. Each cough rattled his chest, causing sharp spikes in the pain each time. And he couldn’t _stop_. His rebellious body just kept instinctively fighting to survive and resisting his attempt to remember that he didn’t need to breathe at all.

The well-meaning human was back, kneeling next to Crowley and talking. Asking if he was all right. Asking if it was from inhaling the smoke and calling for help. And Crowley couldn’t concentrate his power enough to make the humans ignore him and leave him alone.

He dug out his needle-nose pliers from his coat pocket, the ones that he’d used the day before. Crowley shrugged off the human’s attempt to help. Then he started ripping brambles out of throat and the humans were too horrified to do anything else except stare. They didn’t even try extinguishing the fire anymore. Even the small explosion of _something_ in the bookshop couldn’t make them look away.

Crowley didn’t care. He couldn’t care about the humans staring at the flowers that he was yanking and ripping out of his mouth or his fully yellow eyes. All he could concentrate on was trying to relieve the pain and pressure any way possible. He grabbed desperately with the pliers, tearing away at his throat and mouth with both the tool and the thorns. There was too much. He needed to get it _out_. The struggle seemed to be taking an eternity.

And when he could finally get his corporeal form to stop choking and coughing, forcing it to grow still and quiet, he could pay attention to his surroundings again. A small demonic miracle convinced the cluster of worried and scared humans to ignore and forget about him, convincing them to go back to dealing with the fire. He didn’t know why he bothered. What did it matter? Everything would be gone in a few hours anyway. But Crowley did it and then he used another demonic miracle to heal the damage to his physical body.

A tangled clump of briars and half-crushed flowers lay on the sidewalk in front of him. He numbly identified the species.

Large orange blossoms with closely-compacted and numerous petals— Marigolds. _Pain and grief_.

Small, red, trumpet-like star-shaped flowers— Cypress. _Mourning_.

A piece of past floriography knowledge asserted itself. Marigolds and cypress meant something specific when they were together. _Despair_.

And amongst the rest were long spikes or racemes of purple flowers clumped together— Purple hyacinths. _“I’m sorry.” “Please forgive me.” Sorrow_.

He stared at them a moment longer. Beneath the ash and soot that flaked his face, he looked very tired, very pale, very scared, and simply hurting in a deep and visceral way. Then Crowley slowly stood up, leaving both the plants and his broken sunglasses on the ground. Even if he could still feel the pressure and pain, he felt strangely empty as he returned to the Bentley. He didn’t even bother digging out a spare set of shades from the glovebox until he was already driving.

The radio started playing a song. And as soon as he heard the first lyric, Crowley knew what the Bentley was doing.

_Can anybody find me somebody to love?_

He stared at the radio numbly. Even his car was determined to point it out. Whether as an apology or to rub it in, the Bentley was forcing Crowley to acknowledge everything that he’d lost.

He'd found somebody to love. For six thousand years. But he'd failed to keep him safe and now he was gone.

_Ooh, each morning I get up I die a little_

_Can barely stand on my feet_

_(Take a look at yourself) Take a look in the mirror and cry (and cry)_

_Lord, what you're doing to me (yeah yeah)_

_I have spent all my years in believing you_

_But I just can't get no relief, Lord!_

_Somebody (somebody) ooh somebody (somebody)_

_Can anybody find me somebody to love?_

Crowley wasn’t even certain where he was going. The bookshop was burning, his flat was compromised, and the world was ending. There was nothing left for him.

He couldn’t even choose to follow his angel into oblivion. The thermos was empty, used as insurance as promised.

Perhaps he could find a church and risk the consecrated ground to reach their holy water; maybe humans still kept it out like the font he saw in a church last time. A brief moment of suffering and all his pain, physical and emotional, would be over. He wouldn’t have to bear the loss any longer.

And after thousands of years of increasingly intense pain, Crowley finally wanted to take the easy way out. A quick toast of holy water. Ligur was gone in a couple seconds and he was a Duke of Hell. Crowley wouldn’t take nearly as long.

Or maybe beg Satan to rip out the flowers and his capacity to love. Then he wouldn’t care anymore. He wouldn’t be himself, but it would be over.

_I work hard (he works hard) every day of my life_

_I work 'til I ache in my bones_

_At the end (at the end of the day)_

_I take home my hard earned pay all on my own_

_I get down (down) on my knees (knees)_

_And I start to pray_

_'Til the tears run down from my eyes_

_Lord, somebody (somebody), ooh somebody_

_(Please) can anybody find me somebody to love?_

But, no, he couldn’t do either of those things. He had told Aziraphale that he wouldn’t use holy water as a suicide pill. Crowley couldn’t betray that trust even now. And even if didn’t know that Satan destroy him instantly for losing the Anti-Christ and melting Ligur, he couldn’t ask the devil to take that part of him. Crowley knew that he still wouldn’t give anyone the pleasure of remaking him ever again. He would die as himself and no one else.

Besides, oblivion wasn’t that far away. If Hell didn’t catch up with him, the Apocalypse would soon end everything. Or maybe the curse would finish him off first. He wasn’t in great shape; his true form and physical body were in constant agony, wounded and slowly dying. Cowley knew that regardless of what caused it, he would almost certainly be dead by nightfall from _something_. And he refused to fight it.

Crowley finally chose a destination. If he had to spend his last few hours waiting for the end, he didn’t want to feel the heartache and grief. He didn’t know if enough alcohol existed to numb the pain, but he was going to find out.

_(He works hard)_

_Everyday (everyday) I try and I try and I try_

_But everybody wants to put me down_

_They say I'm going crazy_

_They say I got a lot of water in my brain_

_Ah, got no common sense_

_I got nobody left to believe in_

_Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah_

* * *

He’d been to this particular pub before. Numerous times over the years. Even as it changed ownership, the passage of time ensuring that Crowley outlived the other patrons. He preferred to have a drink with the angel, but sometimes a demon needed somewhere to talk _about_ his angel. By now, the regulars knew to leave him alone and not ask questions about the man-shaped entity wearing shades in the dim pub and talking about nonsense.

It didn’t take much effort for Crowley to convince the bartender to hand over a bottle and ignore the demon. And especially ignore how much he was drinking or that the bottle refused to run empty. This was reality. And in reality, bottles can only contain so much liquid. And that liquid certainly didn’t gradually turn into increasingly strong varieties of alcohol. That would be silly.

Though it was at least a less flashy trick than the whole “water into wine” business.

Crowley wasn’t as drunk as he wanted to be. Not yet. Not even close. Mostly because he was still conscious and capable of remembering the last two days. He would only be drunk enough once both of those options were off the table. That meant that he would need to continue applying more alcohol to the problem. Extraordinarily large amounts of alcohol.

But since he wasn’t nearly as drunk as he wanted to be, his maudlin and miserable rant directed upwards wasn’t sparked solely by said alcohol. Guilt, grief, and despair were doing most of the job. But the end result was the same. Loud, pain-fueled, and unfiltered ranting.

Then he noticed that the bottle had decided to run empty despite Crowley’s explicit wishes for it to stay full. _Traitor_. Couldn’t even depend on alcohol anymore.

Lifting the empty traitor of a bottle, Crowley looked towards the bar and called, “Same again.”

Thunder crashed outside, but the bartender was already turning away to hunt for another full bottle. Hopefully this one would be more loyal and obedient. Crowley drank what was left of the traitor bottle’s contents from a glass, draining it as quickly as he would a shot glass. Then the bartender reached his table with a new bottle, one that wouldn’t betray and forsake him.

Looking in the human’s direction, Crowley said, “I never asked to be a demon.” When the bartender started walking away, he turned his tirade back towards the ceiling where it belonged. “I was just minding my own business one day and then… Oh, lookie here, it’s Lucifer and the guys.”

Crowley was shifting and wobbling in his seat as he spoke. Not quite drunken stumbling or falling. Mostly he just didn’t care. He added some uncoordinated gesturing to his storytelling.

“Oh, hey, the food hadn’t been that good lately. I didn’t have anything on for the rest of that afternoon.” The words were turning into a struggle, his voice growing unsteady and strained. “Next thing, I’m doing a million-light-year freestyle dive into a pool of boiling sulfur.”

Crowley struggled with the bottle for a moment before managing to get it open enough to pour another glassful. He gulped it down without noticing the taste or caring about it.

“Of course, ending up under new management didn’t improve anything either. When the benefits package includes someone imbedding a _freaking_ curse in everyone’s essences, it might be time to call human resources. Or… demon resources. Whatever. Stupid flowers. Thanks a _lot_ , Satan.” Crowley shook his head tiredly. “Was right about one thing. Love _does_ hurt. At least it does when you lose someone you lo…”

He trailed off, choking on something that had nothing to do with the curse or brambles. Crowley would give anything to undo the last several hours. Or the last few days. He just wanted his angel back.

Thunder crashed again as he reached over to pour from the bottle. Then he saw something. Pale, translucent, and barely visible. Crowley’s jaw dropped as he stared.

“Aziraphale?” he said, soft, disbelieving, and uncertain.

The impossible ghost-like figure went from looking around blindly to facing vaguely in Crowley’s direction. But even if he appeared to be sitting in the chair on the other side of the table, he was looking through the demon to an extent. Like he couldn’t really see him.

Raising his glasses up slightly and squinting at the figure in the hopes it would make things clearer, Crowley asked, “Are you here?”

“Good question. Not certain. Never done this before,” he said, sounding far too much like himself even as the angel’s eyes flickered back and forth.

He didn’t sound scared. Or hurt. Or even that nervous. He sounded almost like he was riding a wave of confidence and certainty.

Speaking a little louder, Aziraphale asked, “Can you hear me?”

Letting his glasses drop back into place even as the stunned look remained, Crowley said, “Of course I can hear you.”

But it couldn’t be real. Crowley knew that the universe wasn’t that kind. It wouldn’t give him back his angel now. He must be more drunk than he thought. Either that or his grief was making him see things.

“Afraid that I’ve rather made a mess of things,” said the hallucination. “Did you go to Alpha Centauri?”

Crowley shook his head unsteadily and said, “Nah, I changed my mind. Stuff happened.” Slowly sounding more miserable and struggling not give into tears, he admitted, “I lost my best friend.”

The translucent image of Aziraphale was quiet for a moment, visibly struggling to find the right thing to say. Crowley knew his imagination was good, but he never thought it would be so effective and heartbreaking to have it turn against him.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said the hallucination, his voice sympathetic. Then he collected himself and said, “Listen, uh, back in my bookshop, there’s a book I need you to get.”

“Oh,” he said softly as he propped his head up with his hand, not wanting to be the one to tell Aziraphale even if he was half-certain this was a misery-fueled hallucination, “look, your bookshop isn’t there anymore.”

“Oh?”

The image of Aziraphale sounded so confused and startled. As if the words weren’t sinking in just yet.

“I’m really sorry. It burned down,” apologized Crowley, feeling horrible about it.

The hallucination was quiet as thunder rumbled outside. He stared blankly as he tried to come to terms with what Crowley had just said. Visibly trying to keep the stiff upper lip and control his reaction, but failing. Failing _just_ enough for someone who truly knew Aziraphale could see how much it was hurting him.

Why did his imagination have to be so accurate?

“All of it?” he asked sadly.

Crowley struggled to say something. Anything. But he couldn’t put the words together and he wasn’t even certain what he would say if the consonants would cooperate. But he finally managed to make his voice obey.

“Yeah. What— What was the book?”

Still looking a little lost, he said, “The one the young lady with the bicycle left behind. The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of—”

“Agnes Nutter!” he interrupted excitedly. Crowley reached down and grabbed the book that he’d snagged from the fire, desperately wanting to make Aziraphale happy even if he was a grief-spawn hallucination. Holding it in front of him and pointing, he said, “Yes, I took it.”

“You have it?”

“Look, souvenir.”

“Look inside. I made notes. It’s all in there. The boy’s name, address. Everything else.”

Crowley starts flipping through the pages and unfolding a map. There were indeed notes. Notes that he couldn’t have known about. And if Crowley couldn’t have known about the notes ahead of time, his hallucination certainly couldn’t have told him. But they were real notes. Which meant he wasn’t talking to a hallucination.

Hesitantly, Crowley reached out for the familiar sensation of the angel’s presence. Dread, fear, and hope fought in his crowded chest and—

He felt it. He felt Aziraphale’s presence. A little more diluted and spread out than normal, but he could feel it. The angel was alive, safe, and close.

This was real.

“I worked it all out,” said Aziraphale.

Looking up at the translucent angel and feeling more determined than he had since he stepped out of the bookshop, Crowley said, “Look, wherever you are, I’ll come to you. Where are you?”

“I– I– I’m not really anywhere yet. I’ve been discorporated.”

“Oh,” he said quietly.

That explained it. He’d never felt what it was like with Aziraphale discorporated. That’s why Crowley didn’t recognize the sensation. It’s why he couldn’t find him before.

But he was alive. His angel was alive and he wasn’t going to lose him again. And he would stop the entire stupid Apocalypse if that’s what it took to make sure that Aziraphale stayed safe.

He felt the sharp pressure of something new growing in his chest. New flowers and thorns trying to fill all available space until they smothered all life out of him. Crowley couldn’t help grimacing in pain even as he struggled to keep from coughing and gagging. Aziraphale seemed to be having trouble perceiving anything; he couldn’t apparently see in his current form and appeared to be struggling to hear, judging by how loudly he kept speaking at certain points. Crowley just needed to keep quiet and he wouldn’t notice what was wrong.

“You need to get to Tadfield Air Base,” said Aziraphale.

Looking back down at the map and trying not to sound too choked, Crowley asked, “W–why?”

“World ending.” Crowley looked back up as the angel continued, “That’s where it’s all going to happen. Quite soon now. I’ll head there too. I– I just need to find a receptive body. Harder than you think.”

“I’m not going to go there,” he said quietly, the response almost automatic.

“I do need a body. Pity I can’t inhabit yours,” said Aziraphale with a slight smile, like he wanted to laugh if the situation was less grave.

“Oh…” he said, twisting up his face.

“Angel, demon… Probably explode. _Bleh_.”

“ _Bleh_ ,” he echoed.

It was getting hard to concentrate. Crowley could feel them growing, thorns digging in and the pressure making everything ache. But he had thousands of years of practice.

“So I’ll– I’ll meet you at Tadfield,” said Aziraphale. “But we’re both gonna have to get a bit of a wiggle-on.”

Head snapping back up, Crowley asked, “What?”

“Tadfield Air Base,” he said, fading out of sight as he managed those final words.

“I heard that. It was— It was the ‘wiggle-on,’” said Crowley, barely managing before the words started catching in his throat too much to continue.

As soon as he was certain that Aziraphale was on his way, Crowley let his tight grip of control slip. He slumped forward on the table as he started hacking. He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t _need_ it, but he desperately wanted air and he couldn’t _breathe_.

Twice in one day. New flowers appearing twice in one day instead of slow constant growth? No, no, _no_.

His hands fumbled desperately. Where were the pliers? Did he leave them in the Bentley? Panicked fingers reached into his open-far-too-wide mouth, but they still couldn’t reach. He couldn’t dislodge the plants filling his throat.

He couldn’t breathe, choking and wheezing as he tried. His heart pounded, far too hard and fast. Struggling to beat with every chamber filled with briars. He could already taste the sticky blood at the back of his throat, mixing with the alcohol from before.

And the _pain_. Agony in his true form. Pain wracking throughout his chest. And no relief. He couldn’t make it stop hurting.

Crowley fought down his panic long enough to sober up, the traitor bottle refilling as he purged the alcohol out of his body. It left behind a horrible taste, but then he could concentrate again. Another set of needle-nose pliers appeared in his hands and he could finally start tearing at the brambles. Not that they tore _easily_ , but they never did. That’s what demonic strength was for.

It took far too long and the pile of broken plants on the table looked uncomfortably large when he finished, but eventually the worst of the flowers stopped choking him. His throat were sliced up by thorns. But he could breathe a little now.

It wasn’t prefect. Slipping into a warm vent of hellfire and scorching away the flowers would help. It would give him some actual relief. But that option was no longer available to him. Hell was off-limits and every other demon wanted to mangle him. The best that Crowley could do was physically tearing the plants out and then healing the damage after.

But it didn’t matter. Aziraphale was alive. That thought brightened everything and coaxed the warmth back into Crowley. The angel was alive and needed him. And no force in Heaven, Hell, or on Earth would stop him from reaching Aziraphale.

He briefly poked the pile of brambles. For a moment, he thought that he was looking at one of the more familiar roses, only covered in more blood than expected. But no, it was a new type.

Red roses. _True love_.

And there were round-shaped magenta flower inflorescences that surrounded small and inconspicuous true flowers, making the blossoms seem larger than they actually were— Globe amaranths. _Immortal love. Immortality_.

He stared for a moment. Then Crowley incinerate the plants and stood up from the table.

Aziraphale. Tadfield Air Base. End of the world.

Crowley was already out the door and climbing into the Bentley before he even realized that he was moving. It wasn’t over yet.


	7. Scorching

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That last chapter was intense to write. But we’re getting really close to the end of the Almost Apocalypse now. And maybe then things will improve for everyone.
> 
> …It could happen, right?

Rain continued to fall. Thunderbolts and lightning crashed overhead, though not actually very, very frightening. The storm wouldn’t be slowing down anytime soon. It certainly could be worse, but London was used to dealing with rain and storms. But at the moment, the weather was the least of Crowley’s problems.

His more immediate issue was the traffic.

The roads were packed, bumper to bumper. Traffic jams and rush hour were things that Crowley had certainly claimed credit for and even helped shape in certain locations. But this was more than that. Humans didn’t quite know what was wrong, even with the news reports and such flying around, but enough of them could tell that something was off about the world. And that triggered at least some of their survival instincts, encouraging them to flee. Not all them, but at least some of the increased traffic could be blamed on that. There were too many cars on the road.

Occasionally a vehicle would edge forward the tiniest amount, but never any further than an average human’s stride. And not even nudging things along with a subtle demonic miracle could clear it up. Something ahead was clogging everything up. Crowley could feel it.

His radio was on, tuned to a news broadcast. He needed to keep track of what was happening. Unfortunately, the Bentley’s radio had a mind of its own and was only semi-cooperating. The newscaster on the radio was currently competing with the familiar opening beats of “Another One Bites the Dust.”

Which, considering the circumstances, wasn’t the most encouraging choice.

“And it’s official. This is the biggest traffic jam in England’s history.”

“Why?” groaned Crowley, not really expecting an answer.

But he got a response anyway.

His voice was shifted from normal when he hijacked the radio and the song, but Crowley could still tell who it was. When it was Dagon before, the difference in voice and tone made it hard to identify the speaker. But the way it sent a chill down his spine and deep into his mangled essence told Crowley exactly who decided to remind him that he could never hide from Hell.

“What you did to the M25 was a stroke of demonic genius, darling,” Satan purred through the speakers.

Groaning, Crowley said, “Oh, no, no, no, no, _no_.”

He remembered. The M25. His pride and joy. His favorite project from the last century. He’d reshaped it into something different. The dread sigil Odrega. Which in the language of the dark Priesthood of Ancient Mu meant “hail the great beast, devourer of worlds.” On a normal day, it simply churned out a continuous cloud of low-level evil and frustrated drivers. But when the world was ending and with reality getting a little more flexible with each passing moment, it became something a bit _more_.

Crowley could feel it. If he stretched out his senses, he could feel something shifting. That low-level constant evil ramping up. Growing into something stronger. Stronger, darker, _hotter_ …

Then he felt the balance tip and Crowley winced. _Definitely_ not what he intended to happen. Ever.

“Right. The M25 is now an impassable burning ring of infernal fire and that’s my fault.” Muttering under his breath, Crowley said, “Come on. Tadfield. Tadfield. Tadfield.”

Hell knew where he was. _Satan_ knew where he was. London was currently encircled by something that wasn’t quite hellfire, but felt like something more vicious and feral. And the roads were packed full of scared, frustrated, and stubborn humans to the point that he wasn’t going to be going anywhere for several hours.

But Aziraphale needed him to get to Tadfield Air Base.

Well, if traffic was never going to improve, then he would have to find a way there regardless. Crowley edged his way out of traffic and onto the edge of the road. Then he started picking up speed. Crowley didn’t aim for his normal speed while driving in the emergency lane; he kept at a more human velocity. But at least he was moving again. And the slower pace let him concentrate on trying to examine what he driving towards.

He could sense the dark and infernal power radiating ahead of him. It was hard to ignore. He could feel it the same way that Crowley could reach out to feel the bright warmth of Aziraphale, somewhere still behind him. The evil churned out by the M25, the power amped up to unimaginable levels, pressed against his senses. Crowley didn’t want to imagine what he would See if he could properly Look at it.

Despite traveling at a lower speed than normal, Crowley managed to make decent time. He kept pushing forward, trying to reach Tadfield. But even with the ticking clock looming over him, the Bentley came to a stop as he glimpsed the M25 and the raging inferno that it had become.

It wasn’t tongues of flames flickering like what he might glimpse in a fireplace. It didn’t behave right. It didn’t move and crackle like a fire fueled by wood, coal, oil, natural gas, sulfur, or anything else that immediately sprung to mind. There was a roiling movement, like the way flames look when created by an explosion. But it was continuous rather than something that lasted a few moments. Staring at the fire was like staring at the ocean. Or something solid like a wall of light, heat, and destruction. The infernal flames stretched across the entire horizon, the M25 running as far as the eye could see. Trapping everyone inside. And the giant wall of fire reached upwards, impossibly high. An inescapable barrier, the power it contained radiating off it like a physical force.

It wouldn’t be until later that Crowley would understand what exactly he was looking at. The fire was certainly powerful, dark, and infernal, but it was not hellfire. It held no allegiance to demons or Hell. It was evil, but not hellish and would be no kinder to demons than it would be to anyone else.

But then, the M25 wasn’t the work of Hell. Not truly. The construction was influenced and manipulated by a demon, but the road itself was not demonic. It was conceived by humans, created by humans, and powered by humans driving along it for decades. The M25 churned out low-grade and constant evil, but that didn’t mean it belonged to Hell. Despite what many of them believed and tried their best to achieve, demons and Hell were not the ultimate and strongest source of evil. Humanity would always be better at evil than them, just as they could outmatch angels when it came to kindness and goodness.

Even the boost in strength that pushed the M25 into combustion wasn’t demonic. It came from the Adam Young. And while the origins of Anti-Christ’s powers might be Hell, the boy himself was human. He was human and of Earth in a way that would eventually prove crucial.

So even if one were to consider the M25 partially infernal due to Crowley’s hand in the construction and the sigil that it formed, it was also significantly Earthly and thoroughly _not_ under Hell's control. Setting foot inside would not be like a demon interacting with hellfire. There would be consequences.

Crowley continued to stare at the impossible sight. He didn’t have to understand it yet to sense how deadly it was. The flames that roared and burned like a feral beast were not hellfire nor normal fire. It was something more dangerous and wilder. There was no name for what consumed the M25 and reached high towards the storm clouds. It was evil, rage, destruction, and hunger. Anyone or anything that came within range would be consumed.

And it was blocking Crowley’s path.

“Come on,” he said, picking up the slightly-scorched book. “There must be a way across it. Burning roads. You predicted this, Agnes?”

Things would be so much simpler if he could use a demonic miracle to teleport the rest of the way to Tadfield. But not only would that require him to be able to picture the location perfectly in his mind, but long-distance teleportation of any type was extremely unreliable when it came to ending up exactly where you intended. Crowley knew that if he tried it, he would be lucky if he landed on the right continent.

Or knowing his luck, he’d appear right in the middle of the raging inferno in front of him.

There was a reason that he and Aziraphale drove places instead and only used their powers for teleportation over small distances. Preferably within sight of their destination. The only other option would be having something to serve as a form of a beacon, which wouldn’t work because the Anti-Christ literally concealed his location to supernatural senses.

Flipping through the pages and not finding anything useful, he asked, “Why isn’t there an index?”

A hand reached over and casually plucked the shades off Crowley’s face, startling him into stillness. The power radiating from the wall of fire had distracted him too much to even sense the arrival of another demon. Crowley turned and stared in surprise and mild horror as Hastur snapped the sunglasses into pieces.

Crowley grimaced as his mind offered up an explanation. Hastur had actually used long-distance teleportation. Which would normally be very unreliable when it came to reaching the destination, but Hell knew exactly where Crowley was and had been tracking him through his radio. Crowley knew that. Satan even delivered that short message. And Hastur undoubtedly used the radio as a beacon for the teleportation into his passenger seat.

Not even bothering to look at Crowley while keeping his voice quiet and deadly, Hastur said, “You’ll never escape London. Nothing can.”

“Hastur,” greeted Crowley with forced casualness. “How was your time in voicemail?”

“Funny, ha-ha,” he said in an even and serious tone. “Joke all you like, Crowley. There’s nowhere to run.”

Closing the book and tucking it out of the way, he asked, “Aren’t you to be lining up, ready for battle around now?”

“Hell will not forget.” As Hastur started his threats, Crowley looked through the windshield and hoped to see the answer somewhere ahead of them. “Hell will not forgive. You know where the real Anti-Christ is, don’t you? You’ll never reach him.”

Crowley gave a small shrug. That was a distinct possibility. He wasn’t seeing any good way to get to Tadfield. They were blocked off by the infernal fire and there was no way around it.

“You’re done, Crowley.” Hastur finally glanced at the other demon before indicating the wall of flame. “Think you’re going to get across that? There’s nowhere to go.”

Hastur gave a small chuckle, but Crowley was staring ahead. There really was only one way. There was no other option. Aziraphale asked him to get to Tadfield and Crowley would not fail him. He wouldn’t let the world or his angel be destroyed. The Duke of Hell thought there was nowhere to go?

“Let’s find out,” he said.

Crowley popped in a Mozart CD as thunder crashed overhead and lightning flashed across the landscape, blindingly bright even in comparison to the flames. As the first notes began to play, the Bentley started moving forward again.

“What– What– Why are you driving?” asked Hastur, his calm tone giving way to confusion. “That’s– What– Stop this thing.”

Conversationally, Crowley remarked, “You know the thing that I like best about time, is that every day takes us further away from the 14th century.”

Crowley bared his teeth. It was too predatory to be a true smile and was only a couple steps away from being a snarl. But his dangerous expression didn’t falter as the Bentley continued to pick up speed and Hastur gradually looked more worried.

“I _really_ didn’t like the 14th century,” he continued before glancing over at his passenger. “You’d have loved it, then.”

“Yeah,” he said uncertainly.

“They didn’t have any cars back in the 14th century. Lovely, clever human people inventing cars, and motorways, and windscreen wipers,” said Crowley, glancing back over again as if this was a normal conversation and he couldn’t already feel the temperature rising. “You have to hand it to them.”

“Yeah,” repeated Hastur, his voice and posture growing uneasy.

Lightning again, making the other demon flinch. Crowley could feel the effects of the strange infernal flames already. The rain was starting to steam off the Bentley and the air felt uncomfortably dry. Dry and growing hotter with every passing second. The bright flames filled their entire field of vision.

“ _Ahh!_ ” yelped Hastur as thunder crashed and they kept accelerating. “Stop it. It’s over.” Growing louder and more desperate, he shouted, “You’re doomed. You hear me, Crowley?”

Crowley glared at the approaching flames. The Mozart CD that he’d put in the car to give Aziraphale at least something that he liked to listen to during some of the trips had already spent too long in the Bentley. The music was slowly shifting towards something that the classical composer had never dreamed of writing, but Queen certainly had.

“You’re doomed,” shouted Hastur. “Whatever happens. Doomed.”

“Been doomed for a long time. Hasn’t stopped me yet,” said Crowley, glancing towards his scared passenger with a manic grin on his face. “And see? This day’s already got better.”

The rain wasn’t even touching the car now. And the heat inside would already be causing humans to pass out. Not that it was exactly comfortable for Crowley either. As a serpent, he appreciated warmth as much as the next reptile-like demon. But they were already surpassing that point. It was reaching a painful level.

But pain wasn’t new. He could handle it. Crowley was fine. This was fine.

Everything was fine.

The Bentley plunged straight into the infernal fire as Hastur moaned in fear and horror. The feral and vicious fire burned all around them. It burned in him. The temperature was quickly moving towards something that belonged more in the heart of a volcano or maybe the surface of a star than it did surrounding London. Crowley refused to let his corporeal body burn in the intense heat. He was _fine_.

“Stop this,” screamed Hastur. “You’ll discorporate us both.”

But something _was_ burning. Deep inside him. Crowley knew that hellfire could scorch away the flowers temporarily, but he didn’t expect the strange infernal flames to do it too. He laughed as he felt the brambles burning. At least he would face the end of the world with a little less pain.

Hastur screamed, the Bentley shook in the midst of the inferno, and Crowley kept driving. He was _fine_.

“This is not funny,” shrieked Hastur.

Still grinning like a madman, Crowley yelled, “Come on. If you’ve got to go, then go with style!” 

Whatever combination of demonic power, concentration, imagination, and pure determination that Crowley was maintaining to keep everything together, Hastur couldn’t match it. The Duke of Hell caught on fire, burning as he failed to keep up with the infernal power and heat.

“I hate you,” he cried out.

Then he was gone.

Crowley gave off another desperate unhinged laugh. The fire burned all around him. Bright, intense, and impossibly hot. Roaring in his ears and trying to burn him and the Bentley next. He felt it pressing against his power, hungry and wild. And the wall of flames seemed endless. But Crowley refused. He refused to let the fire claim him or his car.

Gripping the steering wheel tightly, teeth clenched, and his eyes completely yellow, Crowley snarled, “You are my car. I’ve had you from new. You are not going to burn. Don’t even think about it.”

This was fine. Everything was fine. His physical body would _not_ burn. His Bentley would _not_ burn. The flowers and briars could burn all they wanted, but nothing else would.

This was _fine_.

The Bentley shook and rattled as the flames roared all around them. Crowley was nearly shouted and screaming with effort, but it was working. His chest hurt as the vegetation crumbled to ash and what power reached his true form scorched away at least some of those brambles too. Crowley clenched his teeth and was panting with effort, but he kept imagining with all his strength that everything was fine. As far as he was concerned, a ton of burning metal, rubber, and leather was a fully functioning car and nothing would convince him otherwise.

This. Was. _Fine_.

The Bentley nearly rattling and shaking to pieces as he kept pushing it, Crowley finally saw the edge of the M25. And he saw the poor humans trying to establish some order in the face of overwhelming insanity. Crowley honked the horn at the police as he broke through the infernal flames, even waving with a manic grin as he passed them. The fire clung to the car, not willing to surrender their claim, but they couldn’t destroy him or the Bentley. And Crowley certainly didn’t slow.

He had to meet the angel in Tadfield. They had an Apocalypse to stop.

* * *

The Anti-Christ didn’t look like a world-ending threat. Especially after he gave Aziraphale back a physical body and then he and his friends stopped the various Horsemen of the Apocalypse, stating that he had no intentions of ending the world. He looked like an ordinary child standing on the tarmac of the air base. Shorter, curlier, and lighter hair than Warlock’s and friendlier demeanor, but completely normal. Even with his demonic senses, Crowley didn’t feel anything on the surface. Not without the child actively using his powers.

But then, that was one of his subconscious Anti-Christ abilities. The boy was meant to be concealed. He was supposed to let suspicion slide off him like water off a duck’s back, a phrase that Crowley was very thankful to have eventually remembered.

He still seemed ordinary as Crowley started explaining that banishing the Horsemen back to where they came from wouldn’t make a difference in the end because Heaven and Hell still wanted their war. A depressing and pessimistic thing to tell a child, but they couldn’t afford to start celebrating yet.

Then Adam Young met Crowley’s eyes fully.

Suddenly, he felt it. All of it. All of the Anti-Christ’s powers. His capability to manipulate and remake reality far beyond what any angel or demon could achieve. He was operating on a larger and terrifying scale. And he could feel Adam starting to properly Look.

None of the occult or ethereal entities really Looked at each other’s true forms anymore. Not if they were in a corporeal body at the time. It simply wasn’t a casual thing to do by that point.

Demons stopped doing it because none of them wanted to witness someone succumbing to the curse or have another make that discovery about themselves. A type of unspoken and mutually-accepted agreement between demons. Once they started hacking up flowers in their corporeal bodies, it was almost impossible to hide it, but no one would poke around before that point.

And angels mostly didn’t bother casually Looking at each other’s true forms because it was easier to have conversations with the physical bodies. You didn’t have to worry about which sets of eyes out of hundreds to address and focus on. You only had to deal with the two small ones at the front their faces.

Crowley shifted uncomfortably, feeling exposed as the boy stared. Did Aziraphale feel this when Adam separated him from the lady in the dress? It was as if Adam could See everything. His entire history was unfolding in front of the child, being carefully scrutinized and studied. Six thousand years on Earth, the Fall, _everything_. And then he Looked deeper, Adam frowning as his Sight began to focus on the demon’s true form. Frowning as a mostly-human mind tried to comprehend what he was Seeing…

Then Adam looked away, breaking the connection as his focus was pulled towards two more humans and Crowley could breathe again. Both because the plants had been burned back and because the Anti-Christ wasn’t peeling away all those layers to expose him anymore. That sensation was unnerving, reminding Crowley too much of being Seen by Her so long ago. Adam could See too much, too easily. And if he’d noticed the flowers that _hadn’t_ been scorched away from the demon’s true form, Adam might have asked difficult questions.

Still shaking off the worst of the lingering feeling of the Anti-Christ’s investigation, Crowley turned his attention to whatever distracted the boy. And discovered the young woman who hit his Bentley with her bike was now complaining about book thefts. Well, at least that was one problem that was easy to solve. He tossed the charred book towards her, Aziraphale snatching up a fragment of a page that fluttered out.

Now they just needed to figure out what they were going to do next. Unless Aziraphale had something in mind that he wasn’t sharing yet, Crowley had no idea what they were going to do. Because there was no way that Heaven or Hell would just let thing sputter to a halt without trying something else.

* * *

Crowley didn’t mean to doze off while on the bus. They weren’t exactly known for being comfortable modes of transportation. But they had the wrath of Heaven and Hell hanging over their heads. Neither side was known for letting things go and it was easier to blame the two of them. Crowley and Aziraphale’s actions, however minor they turned out to be in the end, gave Heaven and Hell a pair of scapegoats. He knew that he should be helping Aziraphale decipher the final prophecy. It was their only chance to get through this final threat unharmed.

But he was exhausted. It had been a long and stressful day, starting with Hastur spitting threats through the movie theater screen and continuing up to the moment that Adam denied Satan any parental claim. Crowley had endured at least two different bunches of new flowers growing in him. He’d “lost” Aziraphale temporarily. He’d managed to get through the burning M25 with his Bentley and all the way to Tadfield, using a lot of stubborn willpower and imagination. And then he’d managed a large-scale time manipulation event, which was energy-costly move on a good day. He’d burned through a lot of his strength over the course of the day and whatever the demonic equivalent of adrenaline might be, it was wearing off.

Crowley was exhausted. And he could breathe. The flowers and briars had been burned back. Not completely, but enough that his physical form felt normal. His true form was still bleeding ichor, but at least the brambles weren’t constricting as tightly. If he was lucky, maybe it would take a whole month for them to grow back. Exhaustion, slightly less pain, and being able to breathe made the allure of sleep hard to resist.

He tried. He tried to stay awake on the bus. But after a little while, Aziraphale noticed his failing struggle and told him to get some rest until they made it back to the flat. And Crowley relaxed just enough that he dozed off despite his efforts.

Aziraphale kept holding his hand during the ride. Even as Crowley slept. He knew that because his hand was still there when the angel reached over to shake his shoulders and murmured that it was time to go.

The door to his flat was unlocked. Crowley hadn’t bothered to lock it when he raced out of there earlier, his thoughts solely on escaping Hell’s wrath and dragging Aziraphale to the stars. And even if he had thought to lock the door, it would have opened at the angel’s touch. His flat would never be barred against Aziraphale.

The pair of them staggered in. Well, Aziraphale walked and Crowley staggered. Weariness had done little for his coordination. But he was upright, mobile, and semi-coherent. And he managed to gesture vaguely at the different rooms, giving the angel a basic description of the layout. He knew that Aziraphale must have been there at some point in the past, but it was so many years and remodels ago that Crowley doubted he would know where anything was.

Part of him wanted to crawl off to his bedroom. Just slither under the soft, warm, and cozy blankets and sleep for the rest of the night. Or the rest of the century.

Crowley knew that wasn’t an option. Not until they worked out that stupid prophecy and he found a way to keep Aziraphale alive. They needed to work on this, so Crowley found himself gradually leading the angel towards his office. There was a chair and a desk there that they could use. And he could toss a blanket or something over the television. Or he could just rip the thing off the wall and chuck it out a window. Then they could use the rest of the night to find a way to survive. Heaven and Hell would take time to assert control of their troops, so they had a little time. It was a good plan.

He just forgot a few small details.

“What _happened?_ ” asked Aziraphale, horrified.

Crowley blinked at the dark, sticky, and gruesome stain on his floor. Ligur. That’s where he melted Ligur with holy water a few hours ago. It felt like it happened a long time ago. And there were bits of shattered spray bottle scattered around the room. Maybe having their planning session in his office was a bad idea.

A quick glance at Aziraphale’s expression and Crowley decided that yes, this was a _very_ bad idea.

“It’s fine, angel,” he said reassuringly. “I’m fine. We’re all fine. Terrific, even. That’s just… Well, I’ve mentioned Duke Hastur and Ligur before, right? They were a little… upset about Warlock not being the Anti-Christ and came to… _Mmn… Fsh… Ngh_ … Give me a rude note?”

“Your si— That side doesn’t _give_ rude notes.”

Aziraphale was still staring at the dark stain, horror and distress etched across his features. It had been a long and trying day for Crowley, but he doubted it had been any easier for the angel. He really didn’t need this unpleasant surprise.

Grimacing, he said, “Yeah, no, it doesn’t. But anyway, they were coming. And I knew they were coming. So I took a few precautions and… Ligur got a little… melted.”

“Melted?”

Crowley walked the rest of the way into the room, carefully giving the dark stain a wide berth just in case any droplets of holy water remained. Hopefully it had all evaporated by now.

Could holy water still burn after being evaporated? Could someone dump a bunch of holy water in a humidifier and turn an entire room into a death trap for demons? And what about ice? Could someone freeze holy water and still keep it holy? And would touching the ice be lethal or would you have to wait until it started melting again.

 _And_ Crowley’s thoughts were spiraling out of control. He didn’t need to worry about that. He doubted Heaven or Hell would be that creative. If they wanted him destroyed, they would go for the more straightforward method of execution.

He picked up the empty thermos and held it up. Aziraphale looked paler at the sight, swallowing slightly. The angel was clever. He could put together the rest of the pieces.

“I told you,” said Crowley quietly. “I wanted it for insurance. Not a suicide pill. When they came for me, it kept me safe. _You_ kept me safe.”

Several emotions flashed across the angel’s face. Aziraphale hands fussed and straightened with his waistcoat, falling back on familiar habits. He tried to look down, but the ugly splotch of demonic goop made him look back up at Crowley again. Finally he seemed to settle on a decision.

A snap of his fingers and the Ligur’s remains were gone, Aziraphale nodding in satisfaction. That didn’t stop the angel from stepping around the spot carefully, as if avoiding even treading on the memory of the demise. Then Aziraphale settled next to Crowley, both of them leaning against the desk. He watched as Crowley fiddled with the tartan thermos in his hands.

“I’m… thankful that the only one that my gift hurt was someone else,” said Aziraphale slowly. “It would have been nicer if you never needed to use it. I never felt comfortable with the idea of you anywhere near holy water.”

“I don’t think either of us have much say in whether or not they drag me near holy water tomorrow,” he said quietly. “Because we both know that’s what they’ll do.”

“Unless we figure out Agnes’s warning tonight.”

“You’re clever, angel. You’ll figure it out. I know you will.”

Aziraphale managed the smallest wan smile. Then he reached across for the thermos, prompting Crowley to hold it out of range.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

“Well, you already used the holy water. It’s empty, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is. That doesn’t mean it isn’t mine. You gave it to me, remember?”

“But it’s empty now. You have no further use for it.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s mine. You’re not getting it back,” said Crowley in the most childish tone that he could manage, before hugging it to his chest and leaving Aziraphale fighting a grin at his behavior. “Maybe I can use it for something else.”

“Like what?” he asked, sounding like he was about to laugh. “I rather doubt you’re going to start carrying around a thermos of tea everywhere you go.”

“You don’t know that. Lots of good uses for a decent thermos.”

“Do you honestly expect me to believe you would be comfortable drinking from something that held _holy water_ for _decades?_ ”

Crowley hesitated, as if carefully considering the idea. Then he gave a shrug.

“Doesn’t matter. You gave this to me and I’m keeping it. But I’ll tell you what. If you figure out how to keep Heaven and Hell from wiping us both out of existence, I’ll leave you this thermos in my Will. You’ll inherit this amazingly-tartan thermos upon my demise.”

“How generous of you,” said Aziraphale dryly. “Six thousand years of friendship and all I’ll get is a thermos. A thermos that _I_ gave you.”

Crowley smiled at Aziraphale calling what they had a friendship again. He’d assumed that they were back on those terms, but it was still nice to hear that acknowledgment after their argument at the bandstand. But mostly he was happy that he’d pulled the angel out of whatever worried and anxious state he was trying to slip into.

He had plenty of reasons to be upset. His stubborn faith in Heaven had been finally shattered beyond all hope of denial and self-delusion, even if Aziraphale still seemed to have faith in Her. He’d been discorporated, possessed a human, stood up to Gabriel and Beelzebub in support of the Anti-Christ and Earth, and then almost faced down Satan in a showdown that the two of them would have certainly lost. It was a lot to handle. But his angel was strong. As strong as he was soft and good. And he could still smile after all that, even if Crowley had to tease it out of him.

Aziraphale would be fine. Whatever happened next, his angel would be fine.

“So, now that we’ve sorted out when you’ll get this terrific thermos back, how about we take another look at that prophecy,” he said, setting the thermos back on the desk. Crowley took a deep breath and let it out slowly, enjoying the sensation while he could still do it. “What’s the old witch trying to tell us?”

Pulling out the singed scrap of paper, Aziraphale said, “Well, I’ve been thinking it over and I might have a few ideas. It would be complicated and dangerous, but it _could_ work… And if it does and we pull it off just right, it might unnerve everyone enough that Heaven and Hell will give us some space for a while.” He handed over the prophecy to Crowley. “It has to do with her advice about choosing our faces…”


	8. Smothering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The world is saved, but that doesn’t mean that everything is tickety-boo. Someone is still hiding a few important facts. Like a certain curse…
> 
> But I’m sure that won’t cause any problems, right?
> 
> ...Yeah, be sure to keep an eye on those tags, people...

Swapping out their corporeal forms wasn’t as simple or straightforward as Aziraphale made it sound. But neither of them exploded, which Crowley considered to be a considerable relief. And thanks to his not-so-fun trip through the raging inferno of the M25, there were no thorns or flowers clogging up his physical body’s lungs. Which meant that when Aziraphale borrowed it, there was no vegetation for him to notice. There was no evidence to make the angel worry and distract him away from his impersonation. And when Crowley took Aziraphale’s place for the planned execution in Heaven and marched straight into the pillar of hellfire, it further scorched away at the brambles in his essence. The warmth and weakening pressure to his true form outweighed the stinging bite of flames.

But even with the pruned back flowers and clear lungs, Crowley couldn’t bring himself to breathe a proper sigh of relief until they were both sitting on the bench together afterwards. He couldn’t properly breathe past a very different tightness in his throat until he was certain that the angel was safe. Only then, letting Aziraphale reclaim his soft, blond, and familiar shape, could Crowley finally enjoy the fresh air of freedom.

Both of them were free. No Heaven or Hell. No constant worry or looking over their shoulders. They could be themselves. The two of them could relax a bit. They could be honest. No more excuses, pretending, or secrets.

Well, maybe a few secrets. Like Crowley’s feelings. Or what those feelings were doing to the demon. Or what it would ultimately lead to. But the immediate aftermath of the failed apocalypse and the attempted executions didn’t seem like the best time to bring it up. Not when Crowley could instead focus on how happy and relaxed the angel looked when they went to lunch, Aziraphale’s face lighting up and eyes shining. Crowley just wanted to hold onto that moment forever, basking in the warmth the angel’s expression was causing.

He loved Aziraphale. So much. And they were happy. Both of them. Happier than Crowley could remember feeling in six thousand years. He could just sit across the table, simply loving his angel and enjoying the fondness and friendly affection that Aziraphale felt comfortable enough to finally demonstrate. The angel didn’t love him, not even the platonic love of friendship. Otherwise the demon knew that the remaining thorns embedded in his essence would loosen. But he liked Crowley and he was happy. That was enough.

He’d hoped that the flowers would take a month to regrow. Crowley didn’t know if it was the strange infernal fire of the M25 having an unusual effect, the combination of it and the later hellfire, or some weird metaphysical fallout from Nope-mageddon, but the relief lasted almost two months. He was thankful for the slow return. Those weeks of limited pain and increased time with the angel felt like a dream.

Dinners at Aziraphale’s favorite restaurants. Afternoons at the park. Visits to the theater. Long drives in the Bentley with no real destination. Evenings of drinking together while talking about everything, ranging from reminiscing about the past to Aziraphale relaying his latest phone conversation with “that lovely Ms. Device” over books and prophecies. And countless hours spent in the bookshop for no particular reason, sometimes in complete silence as they simply enjoyed each other’s presence without even the faintest worry about being caught.

Crowley treasured every precious moment that he spent with Aziraphale. He saw the angel almost every day, to the point it seemed like he saw him more than he did when they were watching over Warlock together. Crowley did everything possible to be around Aziraphale during the following months and the angel seemed happy to indulge him. Even when the flowers returned just as thick as before and the weather grew colder, Crowley sought out his company continuously. Almost desperately.

He was almost out of time.

It was exhausting hiding all the accumulating signs. Crowley needed almost constant demonic miracles to maintain the illusion. Heal away the blood, scratches, and cuts that kept collecting in his chest and throat. Keep his complexion warm and lively. Force his chest to move, giving the illusion of breathing while preventing his corporeal body from actually giving into the impulse and collapsing into wracking coughs. Every moment that he spent with Aziraphale involved a large amount of concentration. At least he already didn’t eat much when they went out; he wasn’t certain he could come up with excuses for why he couldn’t swallow much as brambles kept trying to climb towards his mouth.

And as soon as he would leave and drag himself back to his flat, Crowley would release those demonic miracles and would collapse into a choking, coughing, and gasping mess, far too pale and tasting blood. No matter how many brambles that he tore out, he could no longer keep ahead of the growth. Hellfire was beyond his reach and he could barely do anything with the needle-nose pliers except keep his mouth clear. Crowley could do very little to lessen the pressure and pain to his physical body and the only thing that the demon could do to help his true form was to regularly manifest his wings for grooming, tearing them free of any flowers trying to gain a foothold on them.

Agony and the constant effort to appear fine drained away his strength. As the new year arrived and the days started growing longer, Crowley found himself curling up in bed resting every moment that he wasn’t with the angel. Not sleeping. He needed as much rest as possible to maintain even a little energy, but he was weakening enough that Crowley didn’t risk falling asleep. He wasn’t certain that he would wake up again.

He was dying. Crowley couldn’t deny it or ignore it. He wasn’t going to survive until summer.

Since he knew it was coming, he could make a few preparations. Whatever stocks and investments that he didn’t unload in the lead up to the supposed end of the world, Crowley quietly arranged for them to transfer into the name of Aziraphale’s current human identity. Sometimes it was useful to have actual money and not just miracle up enough. Another portion of his actual funds went into a savings account for Adam Young that he could access when he was older, enough to use for university or anything else that he might want when he reached adulthood. Adam deserved that much after the kid saved the world. Crowley knew that Aziraphale would never drive the Bentley, so he left a note in the glovebox asking for the angel to give it to Warlock when he was old enough to drive. The boy always admired his nanny’s car; he would take care of the Bentley as much as any human possibly could.

That only left the question of what to tell Aziraphale. Because Crowley refused to tell him what was happening. He couldn’t tell the angel about the curse or what caused it to manifest. Even if it wasn’t his fault, it would make Aziraphale feel guilty. Aziraphale didn’t love him, but he would try. He would try to love him back because he wanted to save Crowley, but love can’t be forced and he would fail. And then Aziraphale would feel horrible, like it was his fault. And Crowley refused to put him through that pain.

Crowley had briefly hoped, once they cut ties with Heaven and Hell, Aziraphale might… That he’d be relaxed and feel freer with his emotions and thoughts. And with that new freedom, he might someday… But Aziraphale was always slower to adopt changes. And it was a big change. There were still days where he would say something or Crowley would make an off-handed remark and there would be a moment. A split second where the angel would flinch, hesitate, or start to backtrack a little, falling back on old habits and fears before remembering that he didn’t answer to Heaven anymore. Maybe someday Aziraphale would grow comfortable enough that he might feel…

But Crowley didn’t have enough time for that. He wouldn’t survive long enough to see if Aziraphale might return his love someday and he refused to make the angel feel guilty about something that wasn’t his fault. The curse was created and placed by Satan. And Crowley’s emotions activated it. None of that was Aziraphale’s fault in any possible way. And Crowley would do everything in his power to make certain that the angel never blamed himself for it.

So he couldn’t tell Aziraphale about what was happening. And he also didn’t want to make Aziraphale watch him die.

Crowley considered a few options. Different ideas on how to make sure that Aziraphale wouldn’t witness it.

He could tell Aziraphale that he wanted to use some of their new freedom to visit a few old haunts, check on a few things outside of the country, shouldn’t take that long if Aziraphale wanted to stay and sort out the rest of the new books that Adam added and the volumes that he’d been exchanging with Anathema, he probably wouldn’t enjoy the places that Crowley would be headed anyway, and maybe they could do something fun when he made it back. That story could distract Aziraphale for months or even a few years. The angel would get to stay in London, safe and content while thinking that Crowley was out there somewhere in the world enjoying himself. It would take him a while to realize anything happened.

Or Crowley could try provoking a fight and then storm off in a fake rage. That one would be more distressing for Aziraphale, but disagreements happened and the angel would just assume that he needed some time to cool off. Aziraphale would give him some space and wouldn’t go looking for him until Crowley was ready. It could be decades before Aziraphale started to worry. If Crowley was lucky, he would assume that the demon was just sleep sulking somewhere. It could take a century before Aziraphale truly considered the idea that Crowley wouldn’t be coming back.

But in the end, he couldn’t do it. Crowley couldn’t go through with it. He didn’t want his final interactions with the angel, his _final words_ to him, to be lies. And he didn’t want to stage a fight because then his last moments would be lies _and_ he would be purposefully hurting Aziraphale. He couldn’t do that.

Aziraphale would be hurt by his loss regardless, but Crowley wanted to minimize that pain.

And in the end, Crowley was too selfish. He didn’t want to leave his angel any sooner than he had to. He wanted to experience every last second of the wonderful warmth of loving Aziraphale that he possibly could. He wanted to share every minute that he could before the agony, exhaustion, and destruction of both his physical body and true form caused his demise. He didn’t want to leave Aziraphale early, making up lies before disappearing somewhere private to die. He didn’t want to go.

So he kept putting it off. Crowley kept visiting Aziraphale and basking in his company. He kept going, acting as everything was fine. He kept enjoying every precious moment with the angel. He kept enduring the pain and feeling himself weakening, but hiding it behind his dark glasses and demonic miracles. He kept waiting as the weather began to warm up and flowers started to bloom.

And then he invited Aziraphale to finally go on that picnic together.

* * *

Aziraphale sat on the edge of the thick blanket spread on the ground, nibbling delicately on the sandwiches from the large basket. Because of course a large basket was required for this activity. It was a little early in the year for such things. A faint chill in the air remained during the month of April and would probably last until they properly reached summer. But the sun was shining and warm that day and the slight breeze felt nice. Birds sang sweetly in the trees and wildflowers were blooming, their scent carried on the wind. They’d found a beautiful and comfortable spot in the middle of the countryside, no buildings or humans in sight of their private affair. Maybe he could hear distant traffic if he strained, but for the moment it was easy to pretend that there was no one else in the world except for the two of them.

After suggesting it decades ago and barely believing that there would ever be a day where it would be possible, Aziraphale and Crowley were finally going on a picnic together.

He’d been surprised when Crowley arrived that morning, a basket of various culinary delights already obtained and waiting in the Bentley. But the demon had asked with a soft and almost pleading smile and Aziraphale had quickly agreed. Crowley took a scenic route, even driving slower than normal as they wove their way towards Tadfield. The warm background feeling of love that permeated the entire area, a remaining side effect of Adam calling the place home and loving Tadfield so strongly, only made the trip more pleasant. Aziraphale suspected that Crowley picked the location for the picnic specifically because he knew the angel would appreciate the sensation. It was rather considerate, arranging their picnic somewhere deeply beloved and naturally beautiful. And Crowley even brought along a few treats from the angel’s favorite bakery. He was clearly doing everything possible to make the day perfect.

He was almost trying _too_ hard.

Even as Aziraphale enjoyed working his way through the contents of the picnic basket and complimenting the wonderful job that Crowley did putting it together, he couldn’t help thinking that Crowley was trying too hard to make the day perfect. Maybe he was trying to live up to decades of imagining, but this wasn’t the only moment recently that felt off.

Over the past few months, Crowley seemed to grow quieter and less energetic. They were spending more time hanging around the bookshop doing nothing in particular or talking rather than going out like they did shortly after the failed end of the world. There were fewer trips out to restaurants or the theater or the park and when they did go out, Crowley didn’t bother with even the smallest moments of mischief such as using a small demonic miracle to glue a coin to the sidewalk. At first, Aziraphale assumed that Crowley was slowing down from the colder winter weather and just wanted to stay inside where it was warm. But he didn’t perk back up when spring rolled back around. That was part of the reason why the sudden invitation to a picnic startled the angel so much.

Maybe it was just the resulting fallout of the Apoca-Oops and trying to adapt to no longer being under Hell’s employ. It was a strange time and there was bound to be an adjustment period. Aziraphale certainly had days where he felt odd and uncomfortable when he let his thoughts linger on what it meant to no longer be welcome in Heaven. He hoped that was the explanation.

But he couldn’t help feeling that something was on Crowley’s mind and had been for a while. It felt like Crowley was hiding something. And while Aziraphale wanted to know what was bothering him, pushing and prying at sensitive topics wasn’t their way. Or at least, it wasn’t the angel’s way. So he kept quiet and waited. Crowley would tell him when he was ready. Aziraphale could trust him.

It was a beautiful day and a perfect picnic though. They sat there for a couple hours, relaxing and taking their time as they worked through the packed lunch. Or rather, Aziraphale savored every bite while Crowley watched. Even with the sunglasses, he could tell that the demon’s eyes never left him. A fact that warmed the angel because… because…

Because they were friends. Because they were friends, because Crowley liked him as much as any demon was capable, and because it was nice to spend time with friends.

Friendship was all that Aziraphale felt for him. Not because of Heaven or Hell. They no longer had any say in the matter. Friendship was merely all that they could ever share. Crowley was fond of him and Aziraphale was grateful for having that much. And it wouldn’t be fair for either of them if the angel wanted something that the demon couldn’t give.

But thankfully they were both on the same page. Friendship. Crowley was his oldest and dearest friend and anything that Aziraphale felt was clearly the bonds of friendship that the two them shared. A friendship that they’d shared for ages. Only friendship.

Aziraphale took another bite to distract himself from that rather unproductive train of thought. Then he smiled. The sandwiches were really quite good. He smiled at Crowley warmly, who returned a smaller and softer expression.

As both the basket and the blanket began to look rather bare, Crowley said quietly, “Hey, angel? Since we’re already close, want to swing by and check on Book-Girl? As long as she promises not to hit my car again.”

Aziraphale smiled at the suggestion of visiting Anathema. He’d rather liked the young woman and, after the entire Armaged-Don’t mess, he’d kept in touch with her. It was enjoyable to find someone who could properly discuss various books of prophecy, though they’d long since strayed onto other topics. Human friendships always held a certain level of heartache, but Aziraphale had never been able to stop himself from forging a few of them every few decades or so.

Besides, it was rare that he could befriend and talk with a human who was aware of his true nature. After a certain point, revealing himself as an angel to mankind was deeply discouraged. Tests of faith and belief, according to the last memo on the topic. Not to mention that it generally overwhelmed many humans, having proof of the divine. The humans who ended up tangled up in Aren’t-mageddon turned out to be made of sterner stuff though and Anathema had a certain level-headed, no nonsense, and practical outlook that made conversations with her rather delightful. Aziraphale was quite fond of her and they had more common interests than he did with the charming Madame Tracy.

“That sounds wonderful. And it would be rude to visit the area without stopping in to at least say hello to her and her boyfriend,” he said. “We’ll try not to stay too long. I wouldn’t want you to get bored and start tormenting poor Mr. Pulsifer.”

Shaking his head slightly, Crowley said, “Nah, it’ll be fine. Wouldn’t have suggested it if I didn’t want the two of you bookworms to talk as long as you wanted. I’ll even avoid giving her technobane of a boyfriend any nightmares.”

Well, if it truly didn’t bother Crowley, then Aziraphale saw no reason why they couldn’t pay Anathema and Newt a proper visit. Assuming that the couple weren’t already busy, of course. The angel brushed off any remaining crumbs as Crowley gathered everything back up and stuffed it all into the basket. It was a relatively short walk back to the road, the Bentley parked at the edge of the pavement waiting for them.

When they didn’t immediately leave and Crowley simply sat in the driver’s seat for a moment after climbing in, Aziraphale frowned and asked, “Is everything all right?”

“I’m pretty much the same as always, angel,” he said after a moment. “Promise.”

Then Crowley started the car. Once more, he went slower than normal. The Bentley moved at a leisurely pace, letting Aziraphale actually enjoy his beautiful surroundings. They drove past a few homes until they spotted Jasmine Cottage. They’d barely parked in place before the perpetually-startled face of Newt Pulsifer appeared at the door.

“Oh,” said Newt, blinking at them. “I didn’t know we were having company.”

Slithering out of the Bentley, Crowley asked, “Bad time?”

“No. I mean, I don’t think so. We didn’t have anything really planned for today except maybe working on the flower beds,” he said. “And I don’t think Anathema would complain about putting that off until tomorrow. Come on in. I’ll let her know that you’re both here.”

Aziraphale and Crowley followed the young man in, the horseshoe that used to rest above the door long since removed once Anathema made the acquaintance of a friendly former Anti-Christ, his loyal and energetic hellhound, and a retired demon. Having too many charms and wards against general evil seemed a tad rude. She started specializing the protections on the household to be more specific on what they guarded against. Anathema designed her new wards to guard against those with harmful intentions against those within, which had the added side effect of also working on angels should any of them ever decided to express their displeasure against those who interrupted the end of the world.

Anathema greeted the unexpected guests with lemonade and a smile. She and her young man were truly delightful company. Due to being raised to follow the prophecies of her ancestor and being a rather practical occultist herself, she was already fairly unflappable when it came to inhuman visitors. And Newt was just naturally good at adapting to whatever strange and unusual circumstances that he seemed to be tossed into with only minimal warning. The two of them fit together well. And even if Aziraphale knew that their first encounter was foretold centuries before, whatever happened after that day on the tarmac was their decisions.

And he knew how much Anathema and Newt loved each other. Even with the background love that radiated everywhere in Tadfield, he could sense their feelings for one another. Yet another reason why it was nice to visit them in person rather than merely speaking with Anathema over the telephone.

They settled around the kitchen table, everyone now in possession of her American-style lemonade. And after first making polite inquires about Anathema and Newt, their current states, the well-being of their various relatives, and any recent developments in their lives, Aziraphale began to talk about what brought them out to Tadfield that day. He described the lovely picnic, backtracking briefly to mention how the two of them had discussed having a picnic together decades ago originally. He talked about the relaxing drive from London, he praised the beautiful spot that Crowley had found for them, and waxed poetically about the food.

The angel painted a vivid picture of the entire day and how much he enjoyed it for his audience, paying close attention to way Crowley’s mouth would twitch into a smile at different points. He wanted to make sure that Crowley knew how thankful he was for all the effort that the demon went through for their picnic. He wanted Crowley to know that he truly did like it.

As the current topic began to wind down, Crowley slowly stood up. Then he gave the angel a small smile. One that seemed strange in a way that Aziraphale couldn’t quite explain.

“Hey, Aziraphale,” he said quietly. “I’ve got something for you that I left in the Bentley. If you’ll wait here with your fan club, I’m going to head out there and get it out of the car.”

Smiling back at him, Aziraphale said, “Of course. Though after today, I can’t even begin to imagine what else you have in mind.”

“Nothing as good as the picnic itself, I’m afraid,” he said, his smile turning indulgent. Then Crowley looked across the table at Anathema. “Could you look after Aziraphale once I’m gone?”

“I don’t get into trouble _that_ quickly.”

“Really? You should tell Book-Girl about the time you were almost beheaded over crepes. I leave you alone for five minutes and you’re facing the guillotine.”

“It was a bit longer than five minutes, Crowley.”

“That’s a matter of opinion. I barely left you alone and in a completely different _country_ from where they were cutting people’s heads off, but you _still_ ended up next in line for them to chop it off.” He was still staring at Anathema through his sunglasses. “So can I trust you to take care of one stubborn angel for me?”

Struggling not to grin at the entire exchange, she said, “Sure. I promise that we’ll watch out for Aziraphale. No one will cut off his head in my kitchen.”

Crowley stared silently at her, giving her joking response far too much consideration. Then he gave a small nod of satisfaction and headed for the door, pausing briefly to glance back at Aziraphale with another complicated expression before disappearing from sight.

“Well, he certainly knows how to treat someone to a date,” said Newt. “Maybe I should take notes.”

Stiffening in surprise, Aziraphale stammered, “Wait, hold on, what are you talking about? This wasn’t a date. This was _nice_. Or… thoughtful or whatever he would prefer to describe it as. He still doesn’t like calling himself or his actions nice. But it wasn’t a date. We don’t… It isn’t like that.”

“Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed. I just thought… With the way you talked about him that day, at the air base—”

“And every other time that you mention him,” interrupted Anathema, rolling her eyes. “Which is literally every conversation that we have on the phone. Not to mention how the two of you look at each other. You can even see it with his sunglasses. You’d have to be blind to miss it.”

Hands twisting, tugging, and plucking at the edges of his sleeves and staring down at the table surface, Aziraphale said, “I don’t know what you mean. Crowley is my best friend and I’ve known him for a very long time. Whatever you might think that you saw, you must be mistaken.”

Aziraphale’s eyes drifted back up despite his desires. He saw the two humans exchange looks, a silent conversation going on between the couple in an instant. Then Anathema sighed and readjusted her glasses.

“At least Agnes’s predictions made it easier for us to take the first step. How in the world do other people manage this?” she muttered. Then, shaking her head and speaking a little louder, Anathema said, “You’re smarter than that. You both turned against Heaven and Hell, choosing Earth and _each other_. You two go out to fancy dinners together. You just told us about how he arranged this picnic that you both first planned decades ago. I can’t even imagine what other little gestures that he makes that we don’t know about.”

“He leaves me pressed flowers in some of my books,” said Aziraphale, his eyes dropping down again. “He never mentions it, but he’s the only one who could be doing it. He’s the only person who would have the chance to leave them. I find them sometimes. Tucked into the pages.”

He remembered the first time he found them, the colorful dried flowers slipping out of a book that he’d not touched in decades. An unexpected gift when he least expected it. Aziraphale started looking in other volumes, books that he rarely got around to reading lately. They were hidden everywhere. And there were so many different species represented.

He knew that Crowley kept plants. The demon talked about them and he’d glimpsed them at his flat the evening after Armaged-Don’t, beautiful and green things that were terrified into growth. That made the idea of Crowley leaving him flowers feel… special. Personal. Every time that Aziraphale found another pressed blossom tucked into his books, it brought a warm smile to his face.

They were a small gesture that Crowley didn’t acknowledge or mention, but it felt nice that Crowley was thinking about him. That he cared about Aziraphale. As much as it was possible, at least.

“He gives you flowers and you _still_ don’t think today was a date?” Newt shifted in his chair. “I’m not an expert or anything, but—”

“Crowley doesn’t feel those things,” said Aziraphale firmly. “He _can’t_ feel them. No demon can.”

He ignored how saying those words out loud made something deep inside him ache. As if they were somehow more real and final when spoken. Which was foolish because, whether he said them or not, they remained just as true. Saying them only made him feel bad and earned him twin frowns from his audience.

“Maybe it’s just me,” said Newt awkwardly, “but that sounds a little…”

“It’s not a stereotype nor a demonstration of prejudice,” he interrupted. “It’s a literal and well-known fact. Demons can’t love.” Aziraphale fiddled with his sleeves again, his hands refusing to stay still. “They literally can’t. Demons can’t feel any form of love, from the most innocent platonic form of it to… And if they could, if _Crowley_ could, I would know. Angels can sense love. And I’ve known him for six thousand years. If it was possible, I would have sensed it by now.” He smiled sadly at both of them. “Whatever Crowley feels for me, it isn’t love. And as I told you before, he’s my dearest and oldest friend. This was simply a nice day out together. Not a date. And I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention the idea to Crowley. I don’t know how he might react to it and I don’t want to ruin the rest of the day with impossible…”

Aziraphale trailed off, a faint feeling of unease trickling down his spine. Something was wrong. The thought fluttered at the edges of his mind and the angel instinctively pursued it, trying to figure out what felt off. There was something wrong, but he couldn’t recognize it. Then the subconscious observation solidified in his mind.

“He should have come back inside by now,” he whispered, eyes widening as he stood up. Aziraphale swallowed as unease shifted towards some nameless and shapeless dread. “The car is just outside. It shouldn’t have taken more than a moment. Why isn’t Crowley back yet?”

Her own voice taking on a hint of confusion and concern, Anathema said, “Maybe he’s just—”

But Aziraphale was already moving. He knows that it wasn’t Heaven or Hell making a second attempt. Not so soon after the last failure and not after they were intimidated so thoroughly. Neither side had the imagination to come up with a new plan yet, especially a stealthy one. Not yet. But the feeling of wrongness and dread pounded in his chest as the angel hurried for the door.

The Bentley was still parked exactly where they left it. Aziraphale could see it from the doorway. There was no immediate sign of a struggle, though he would need to move closer to know for certain. But far more important and alarming was the lack of the vehicle’s owner. Crowley wasn’t there. There was nothing.

Then Aziraphale looked down.

Resting innocently on the welcome mat was a thermos. A familiar tartan thermos. One that the angel would recognize anywhere and immediately transformed the dread into horror and growing panic. Aziraphale reached down with trembling fingers and picked it up.

Crowley left it. There was no doubt in the angel’s mind that Crowley left the thermos there for him to find. And Aziraphale remembered a conversation that they had a little less than a year ago.

“ _You gave this to me and I’m keeping it. But I’ll tell you what. If you figure out how to keep Heaven and Hell from wiping us both out of existence, I’ll leave you this thermos in my Will. You’ll inherit this amazingly-tartan thermos upon my demise._ ”

After six thousand years of communicating their thoughts through implications and indirect methods, Aziraphale knew how to find the meaning in this gesture. It had only ever been direct and straightforward communication that failed them.

A silent explanation, an apology, and a goodbye, all contained in a single tartan thermos in the angel’s shaking hands.

“No,” he whispered, his chest and throat already tightening. “No, no, no, _please_.”

If Crowley had given him back the thermos, then either the demon believed that he was about to die… or he already had.

* * *

Tadfield was a quaint and lovely place to live. With beautiful houses and gardens that easily gave way to the neighboring natural forests and rolling fields, offering adventurous children room to explore without having to stray too far home. Even someone struggling to maintain enough strength in his failing body could manage to walk far enough to leave the actual neighborhood behind and find somewhere a bit less populated.

Part of him wished that he was in the bookshop, tucked into a hidden corner of it that was quiet and where the scent of the angel would be all around him like a comforting blanket. But he couldn’t have that. Not if he wanted to keep Aziraphale away from what was happening.

That was part of the reason why they came to Tadfield that day. He needed somewhere else. The urge was instinctive. He didn’t even think about it, simply seeking out a secluded, comfortable, and safe place. Somewhere soothing and calm, where nothing would take advantage of his weak and vulnerable state. Whether the impulse came from his serpent attributes or his demonic nature knowing how others of his kind would be vicious and cruel towards such an easy victim, Crowley just wanted to find a place to hide and wait.

If his thoughts could focus on it, he might have made the connection between his behavior and the way that animals would try to find a quiet and safe place to curl up when they were dying.

He’d done what he could, once he realized that it was truly over. Crowley gave Aziraphale that picnic that he mentioned once, not that long ago. He avoided any lies, making certain that his last words to the angel would be honest ones. He did everything that he could to make this last day happy for both of them. As close to perfect as he could manage. He’d made Aziraphale smile again. Warm, bright, and wonderful.

He’d asked Anathema to look after the angel, though she likely wouldn’t realize yet exactly what he’d asked of her. Aziraphale would be all alone after this; no Heaven, no other angels, and no Crowley to stand with him through the coming ages. At least Anathema and Newt would know who and what he was and what he would be going through, at least as much as any human could comprehend it. He could be honest with them and not hide his true nature. The few decades of a human’s lifespan didn’t really seem like much, but at least he wouldn’t be alone during the immediate fallout. Maybe that would be enough to help Aziraphale get past the loss and grief.

And he’d left the tartan thermos, the one he’d packed away in the backseat of the Bentley under the picnic basket. Crowley couldn’t risk telling Aziraphale goodbye. Not properly. Both because the angel would try to stop him and because he wasn’t certain that he would be able to force himself to walk away if he actually said it. But he hoped that leaving the thermos would be enough to let Aziraphale know that he shouldn’t look for Crowley, that he wouldn’t see the demon again because he wouldn’t be around to find. And maybe Aziraphale would accept it as an apology for the pain that Crowley was about to cause.

Maybe not as much pain as Crowley felt when he saw the bookshop on fire. After all, Crowley loved Aziraphale with every shred of his tattered and dying essence. Losing someone that you love so much was bound to hurt more. But it would still hurt Aziraphale when he was gone and he hoped that the angel knew that he was sorry.

He reached the edge of a field. Trees bordered most of the small field, though it was open enough for him to see a few rolling hills. Other than a few houses in the distance and a road that didn’t seem to have much traffic, the place felt secluded enough to ease that urge to hide somewhere. There was even a relatively tall tree in the middle of the field, offering a tempting place to finally collapse.

Then the wind stirred and a soft floral scent made it past the coppery tang of blood and sap that constantly filled his mouth. Apple blossoms. He turned his head. Along one edge of the open field was a line of young apple trees. Beyond that were older trees, ones that weren’t cultivated like the apple ones, and a dark wooden fence. Crowley could recognize the start of a casual orchard. And the Serpent knew that there was nowhere more appropriate for him. He forced himself back into motion, his demonic power the only thing keeping his physical body going as he staggered towards the closest of the young apple trees.

Crowley could feel the flowers and bramble climbing up his throat and into his mouth. Crowding and pushing their way up, filling up what little space there was left. His heart pounded fast, hard, and unevenly. It had been that way for far too long, struggling to pump blood when thorns and petals filled every chamber. He didn’t technically need to breathe, but he needed that small organ beating at least a little or else his corporeal body would cease to be alive. And that would lead to discorporation and Crowley didn’t want his final moments to be in Hell.

“Please,” he whispered roughly, past the thickening brambles in his throat and the blood in his mouth. “If You ever cared even a little, let me die before I discorporate. Let me die on Earth. It’s ours. Our side.”

He didn’t really expect an answer. Not from Her. But at that point, asking couldn’t make things any worse.

Crowley practically collapsed at the base of the young apple tree, too tired and in too much pain to bother with any amount of grace. He’d planned to lean against the thin trunk, but he didn’t have the strength to make the effort. Besides, he didn’t think it would be too comfortable for his back. Instead, he just curled on his side beneath it, letting his blurring eyes sweep out across the open field below. It didn’t really help much with the pressure in his chest or the urge to cough and choke on the vegetation, but no position really did anymore.

He faintly noticed that he’d knocked off his glasses when he surrendered to gravity. He didn’t bother fumbling for them. There was no real point.

His strained and struggling heart fought desperately to keep beating, to keep his physical body alive even though it could barely pump anything with all the flowers. And deep inside, buried below all the bramble and blossoms strangling his true form, the dark core of himself guttered and faded further with each passing second. Pain and exhaustion consumed him, a constant pressure that had finally worn him away until almost nothing remained. No amount of demonic miracles or power was going to keep him going. All that was left was for Crowley to wait for oblivion.

He vaguely wondered what happened to angels and demons when they truly died. Not just discorporate, but when their entire existence ended. They wouldn’t go to Heaven or Hell like a dead human’s soul. The whole conservation of matter and energy concepts would suggest that they couldn’t just disappear without a trace. Perhaps when they ended permanently, whatever was left returned from whence they came. Perhaps they, or rather whatever materials that She crafted them from and managed to linger when their immortal lives ended, went back to Her since She made them all so long ago.

Or maybe whatever was left of angels went back to Her. But She’d cast out demons, rejected them in every way and would never forgive. He highly doubted that She would welcome him back, even if it was only the lifeless fragments of what used to be his essence.

“Don’t… regret it… though,” he wheezed. “Not my… questions… or any… of it…”

It was getting harder to concentrate. To get the words out without giving in to his body’s exhausted attempt to choking on the thorns and flowers reaching into his mouth.

“Wouldn’t… go back… to Heaven… Don’t… belong…”

It was quiet, curled up under the apple tree. Peaceful, calm, and safe. No one would bother him. Not here. He could rest and the constant pain would finally stop soon. It reminded him of the first garden.

It all started with a garden. At least, the important parts did. Only seemed fitting that it would end with a garden. Even if it was only the garden caused by the curse killing him.

“If I… could… do it again… I’d… make the… same… decisions…”

Of course he would have made the same choices if he had to do it all over again. While he would have preferred to avoid repeating the Fall, he didn’t really regret the way his life turned out. If he never Fell, he wouldn’t have ended up on Earth. He would have never met Aziraphale. All of it, even dying alone under the apple tree of a man who was in for a rather horrible surprise the next time he visited his orchard… Loving his angel was worth it.

This time, Crowley couldn’t stop himself from coughing weakly. There was too much. He fumbled clumsily at his mouth, managing to dislodge one of the flowers forcing its way out. Crowley held it up to his face, his thumb brushing away most of the blood.

A fairly broad flower with delicate purple petals— Sweet Pea. _Departure. “Goodbye.” “Thank you for a lovely time.” Blissful pleasure._

He let his eyes shut as his hand dropped to the ground. Appropriate even to the end.

_Farewell, Aziraphale. It was wonderful to know you._

Crowley let go of most of the power that he’d been using, keeping his physical form together and surviving. His body weakly gasped and struggled to breathe, the brambles and petals rattling in his chest. The urge to panic and fight it felt too distant and he didn’t have the strength to try. Consciousness was already slipping between his fingers.

A fleeting regret managed to flicker through his fading mind. He regretted dying alone. Despite his decision to protect Aziraphale from this, part of him wished that he could hold the angel at least briefly. Or… maybe… have Aziraphale hold him instead.

He clung to that image. His memory of the angel’s smile. Adding a hint of fiction to it, having Aziraphale pull him close. A fantasy where Aziraphale loved him back, even a little.

Then he let go of his final grip on awareness and any remaining shred of power forcing himself to survive. It was out of his hands now. He let himself fade, Crowley’s imagination giving him a final kindness. An impossible dream to accompany him...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone made fanart for this chapter. [And it is gorgeous](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24046513).


	9. The End?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is nothing like writing a chapter that ends with a cliffhanger to bring people out of the woodwork to leave comments… Except for a cliffhanger that involves a character dead, dying, or at least looking like they are dying. Seriously, that last chapter had a lot of comments. Mostly about how I ripped out hearts or reduced people to tears. Which means I did a good job with that chapter. Time to pick up where we left off.

Adam was no longer the Anti-Christ.

He wasn’t Satan’s son. How could someone who was never around be his dad when he had a real, actual, and great one already? Satan wasn’t his dad. And after a stubborn twist to the fabric of reality, Adam arranged it so that he never was. And if the world was supposed to end because of Satan’s son, then that put a real damper on things.

He wasn’t the Anti-Christ, the world was put back the way it was supposed to be, and the Apocalypse was postponed indefinitely. Everything that had started the entire sequence of events was reversed and set back on a different track, letting everyone continue as before. That meant that for all intents and purposes, Adam was supposed to be a normal boy.

Of course, that was easier said than done.

Adam didn’t see why his Not-Dad should have any say in who or what the boy was. Which had the side effect of him not changing nearly as much as he should have when he rewrote reality. He wasn’t the Anti-Christ, but he remained something a bit More than an average human. The slightest touch of something Other.

Most of his powers and capabilities were either gone or locked away by a barrier of his own creation, firmly out of the boy’s reach. He didn’t want to be tempted, even by accident. He didn’t want to be the person that he was when his destiny nearly won out over his identity. Only the smallest fraction of those abilities remained under his control.

He didn’t have the impossible knowledge and awareness that he did before. He couldn’t fit all of that information in his human mind anymore. While he could Look at someone and See far more than would be normal for humans, he needed to concentrate to do it. And he wouldn’t immediately know their entire history or anything as detailed or invasive. He would simply See more.

He couldn’t perform the large-scale or wide-spread alterations to reality that he did before. Only smaller and more localized changes and effects. Even his subconscious influence on the weather were more subtle and imperfect.

But a certain level of awareness and power remained. Especially near his home, where reality was a bit softer and easier to mold after eleven years of his influence. Adam could sense anything celestial or demonic within range of Tadfield. Sense and _repel_. Which was helpful because he’d already decided that all the angels and demons who wanted the world to end weren’t welcome there. Because he remembered how they behaved at the air base. How they wanted to destroy everything just to prove that their side was better. Anyone who wanted the world to end wasn’t allowed to visit.

Except Death. Adam didn’t think that he could keep Death out of Tadfield with what power that he had left and even the eleven-year-old had an inkling that halting all living things from dying in an area was a bad idea.

But for the most part, there were only two supernatural entities that were allowed to cross the border into Tadfield because they were the only two who didn’t seem to think that destroying the Earth and humanity was a brilliant idea. He’d set up the protection around his home specifically that way. Only those two could come through. Nobody else from Heaven or Hell. And sitting in class as his teacher explained the different parts of a sentence structure, Adam sensed the unusual angel and demon arrive.

It was an unexpected distraction, but a welcome one. Anything was more interesting than schoolwork. He couldn’t help wondering what they were doing in Tadfield. It gave him something to concentrate on as the day progress and Pepper started her usual debate with their teacher on history and the Evils of Colonialism and the Effects on Native Populations.

Anathema said that she talked to the angel, Aziraphale, fairly regularly. They both liked books. Maybe they came to visit her and Newt. That made sense. And after they stood up against the other angel and demon that day and even supported him against his Not-Dad, Adam had no problem with them wandering around Tadfield. Even if they wanted to shoot him initially when they met… But they were just scared he was going to destroy the world and wanted to protect it. He couldn’t be too mad about that.

He rather liked the pair and didn’t mind the sensation at the back of his head, the strange feeling that he could only describe as an awareness of their twin presences just out of sight. Like how you could track someone wandering around your house by sound and your familiarity with the layout. Adam rather enjoyed the distraction from class and found himself reaching out for the feeling. Tracking them. Practicing with this particular aspect of his abilities.

Then over the course of the rest of they day, he slowly realized something. He felt something wrong. Something off. And when he thought back to that day on the tarmac, when he Saw and Knew far too much, Adam realized he’d noticed it back then too. A quick glimpse that he barely had time to comprehend before he was distracted. But now Adam wasn’t distracted and he could feel it. The strange and unnerving wrongness. The way that one of the presences he was tracking seemed so much weaker than the other. Weak, withering, and half-smothered beneath a thick layer of darkness. A darkness that reminded him of his Not-Dad. And the sensation was worse than it seemed that day.

Adam could feel it. Something was seriously wrong with Crowley. And there was a sense of urgency to it, leaving him nearly vibrating in his chair as the boy watched the clock. A feeling of time running out gnawed at him.

As the school day finally came to an end, Adam found himself telling the rest of Them that he couldn’t immediately come with them for their planned afternoon game. He had important things to take care of first. He needed to find the demon. He may not have the ability to twist and warp reality around to fix the world to suit his desires anymore, but he needed to do something. He could feel something awful about to happen or already happening. He could feel it pressing on his awareness and Adam didn’t like it. He didn’t like it and it would not happen in Tadfield. He wouldn’t allow it.

* * *

Panic and fear clawed their way up his throat even as Aziraphale tried to swallow it back down. Anathema and Newt were talking, saying that it would be all right and that Crowley couldn’t have gotten far, but he couldn’t seem to focus on the words. He couldn’t seem to breathe past the tightness in his throat and chest. His hands ached from how tightly he was clutching the thermos to his chest.

This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be gone. Crowley couldn’t be gone. It just couldn’t be true.

Aziraphale closed his eyes, trying to stop the downwards spiral of his thoughts. This wasn’t helping. He couldn’t think like that. He didn’t know for certain that Crowley was dead. Not yet. There might be time. Whatever was happening to him or whoever took him or whatever was trying to kill him might take time. The thermos might only mean he was _about_ to die. He could still fix this. He just needed to find Crowley. Find him and save him from whatever threat it was.

Was it Hell? Heaven? Something else? Aziraphale didn’t know, but Crowley at least had the knowledge ahead of time that death was coming for him.

 _Focus_. Don’t think about that. He needed to find the demon.

Aziraphale knew that Crowley could always find him. Especially when the angel was in danger. Crowley could always track him down somehow, finding him wherever in the world that he happened to be. There had to be a way for Aziraphale to find the demon the same way.

All he could do was try.

He tried to reach out, trying to find something that felt like Crowley. Not just something demonic, but Crowley. His curiosity, his cleverness, his stubbornness. His thoughtfulness and reliability. His kindness and that wonderful spark of goodness in him. Everything that made Crowley who he was. Aziraphale reached desperately, quietly hoping to find something. Even the smallest sign of the demon would be enough. Anything that proved that Crowley was still alive and where to find him. And—

 _There_.

Faint, indistinct, and hard to hold on to, but Aziraphale felt the weakest traces of him. Crowley. The angel was struggling to focus on it, the sensation continuously trying to slip between his fingers, but he could feel him. Crowley still existed.

The knot in his chest loosened the smallest amount. There was time. It wasn’t too late.

“This way,” said Aziraphale, snapping open his eyes and startling the humans. “Crowley is this way.”

He wasn’t running. Not truly. But anyone who saw him at that moment might notice that Aziraphale was covering more ground per stride than should have been possible. He didn’t notice. He barely noticed that Anathema and Newt chased after him with worried expressions. All his attention was on trying to hold on to the faint sensation of Crowley’s presence in the world.

Crowley was going to be fine. Aziraphale latched onto that thought. He would find Crowley and he would be fine. Whatever scared Crowley into leaving behind the thermos wouldn’t touch him. They weren’t taking Crowley from him. It didn’t matter if it was other angels or demons. Aziraphale refused to let anything happen to his best friend. Crowley would be fine.

And the indistinct and faint feeling that he could barely grasp was due to Aziraphale’s inexperience with the trick. Not because of anything being wrong with the demon. Crowley was fine.

_Please, let him be fine._

He didn’t know where he expected the trail to lead, but Aziraphale ended up stopping at the edge of the field. It was a lovely field similar to the one that they chose for the picnic, but not anything special. There was no obvious reason for Crowley to come out there or for someone else to drag him there. There was nothing of note. Nothing at all. And the only reason that Aziraphale stopped at all was because his weak grip on the feeling of _Crowley_ slipped away completely.

He couldn’t feel him. He couldn’t feel Crowley. He couldn’t recapture the feeling of the demon’s continued existence. He couldn’t follow the sensation to the demon. He couldn’t be certain that Crowley was still _there_ anymore. Aziraphale could feel his panic bubbling back up.

Struggling to keep his breathing under control as his body succumbed to his emotional distress, Aziraphale’s eyes kept darting across his surroundings. There had to be a sign. Some tiny shred of evidence of which way to go. A hint of where to find the demon—

 _Wait_.

A darker patch near the trees, one that he almost thought was just a shadow. But Aziraphale knew him. He knew him better than anyone else in Creation. The angel’s heart skipped a beat as he recognized the limp shape. Then Aziraphale was moving again. Almost running towards the collapsed figure, dropping the thermos at some point as he raced for the only thing that mattered.

“Crowley,” he called, falling to his knees next to the demon. “Oh, Crowley…”

His hand landed on the limp shoulder. Aziraphale could hear the weak, strained, and unsteady breathing. So soft, frail, and almost gasping. Barely there and rattling in his chest. But he was breathing. Crowley hadn’t discorporated, he hadn’t _died_ , but there was something still wrong. Something seriously wrong.

Aziraphale pulled Crowley closer, rolling him on his back and tugging the demon’s head onto his lap. And the angel froze as he saw his face.

Crowley was pale. Deathly pale and almost a blue-grey that spoke of a lack of oxygen. There was blood on his lips, all the brighter against his lifeless complexion. And brambles. There were a few brambles in his mouth. How? Why? Aziraphale reached for them, trying to tug them out regardless of his confusion. But the plants held firm. Reaching towards the back of his throat and beyond. Choking him.

Confusion and dread taking root, Aziraphale pulled harder. They needed to come out. He pulled at the plants that he could reach, pricking himself on thorns. His thoughts were going running wild. They were impossible. Plants didn’t behave like this. Growing inside someone. Certainly not this fast. He saw Crowley not that long ago. There wasn’t enough time. How could there be briars in his mouth and his throat?

Aziraphale yanked and angelic strength forced something to give. He was left holding a handful of brambles and half-crushed flowers. But they were splattered with blood. More blood was in Crowley’s mouth. The thorns had sliced at the demon’s mouth and throat when he pulled them free. But there were more. With Crowley’s head tilted back limply, the angel could glimpse them at the back of the demon’s throat. It was impossible. Impossible and wrong.

“Are those _growing_ in him?” asked Newt from over the angel’s shoulder. “Is that normal for demons?”

Aziraphale shook his head, trying to wrap his mind around what he was seeing. There was no reason why there should be briars and flowers growing in Crowley’s mouth and throat. They shouldn’t be there. They couldn’t be there. Why? Why was this happening? What was causing it?

He needed to fix this. He needed to get rid of those plants and heal whatever was bleeding.

“It’ll be all right,” he said shakily, one hand cupping the side of Crowley’s face. “Everything is going to be all right.”

The demon’s skin felt cool, but not _cold_. Just as he didn’t feel empty and gone. He was just so close that it _almost_ felt like it. Aziraphale clung to the knowledge that it wasn’t too late. There was still time. He just needed to fix Crowley and everything would be all right. He could do this.

Trying to sound calm and reassuring, he continued, “You’ll be fine. We’ll sort all this out.”

A miracle wrapped around the brambles buried in the demon. Aziraphale wrapped his power around every shred of vegetation in Crowley’s mouth and throat. Then he sent it—

He sent it—

Aziraphale frowned and tried it again. And again. And again. But no matter how much power he poured into the miracle, it slid right off. He couldn’t make the brambles disappear. He couldn’t send them away. His power refused to get rid of the plants. Something darker and stronger than the angel kept them rooted in place.

“I don’t understand,” he whispered, hands shaking as his fingers traced their way along Crowley’s slack face, down his neck, and to his chest. He could feel the faintest and weakest heartbeat, but only barely. “It should be working. Why isn’t it working? Why can’t I get rid of them? The plants should be gone. Why won’t it work?”

Crouched on the other side of the dying figure and staring through Crowley, Anathema said, “His aura… I don’t know for certain, but… It looks like a curse. But stronger than anything I’ve ever read about.”

“Should we call an ambulance or something?” asked Newt, taking up position next to her. “I mean, shouldn’t we? Could they help? Can they do anything about flowers and thorns in someone?”

A curse. Who could have put a curse on Crowley? When? Did Hell track him down and do it today? Or a week or month ago? When did he first notice Crowley acting strange? Or maybe the other angels did it during the failed executions, thinking that they put the curse on Aziraphale instead. How long had this been going on?

Aziraphale’s thoughts were spinning out of control. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t focus. What were they going to do? He had to fix this. He couldn’t let this take Crowley.

He couldn’t dislodge the plants, but Aziraphale could do _something_. He poured a healing miracle into the limp and pliant body in his lap. Healing the deep and bleeding cuts and scratches. He mentally followed the wounds as the healing spread. From his mouth, down his throat, and into his crowded and clogged lungs and struggling heart. It gave Aziraphale a thorough understanding of how far it had spread through his corporeal body and an uneasy suspicion that the impossible plants reached deeper than that. But as soon as the angel healed the physical damage, the thorns tore open new cuts.

He wasn’t making any difference.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, blinking back the burning sensation in his eyes. “We’ll figure this out. You’ll be fine.”

The words almost felt like lies on his tongue. Crowley was too pale and barely had a pulse. Barely alive by human standards. And as bad as discorporation would be for them, dragging Crowley down to Hell with no chance of gaining a new body, he knew that wasn’t the danger right now. He knew it was more serious than that.

He didn’t want to Look. Aziraphale didn’t want to See. Not when he could already tell how close Crowley was to discorporating and he could barely sense his demonic presence. He didn’t want to See, but he had to know. He had to know how bad it was.

He had to know if there was any hope.

Aziraphale forcibly shook off that negative thought. Crowley would be fine. He would find a way to help him. Crowley wasn’t going to die. He wouldn’t let that happen. He wasn’t going to lose him. He just needed to take a closer Look at what was happening.

Still directing as much energy possible into healing the failing heart and keeping it beating, Aziraphale closed his eyes. And then he Looked. He didn’t bother wasting time Looking at himself and his true form. And he tried to ignore all the distractions. The surrounding field teeming with life, the ley lines, the powerful surrounding glow of love that permeated all of Tadfield, and the bright sparks of life from the two humans and the extra gleam from Anathema’s witch heritage. He always Saw too much on the rare occasions he relied on his more angelic senses, Looking on a slightly different plane of existence from the rest at the world where nothing resembled their physical appearance. But he forced himself to focus solely on the demon.

And his fear, panic, and worry were joined by absolute horror. He couldn’t even _See_ Crowley’s true form. The most that he could glimpse at first were dark wings hanging limp, the tendrils of briars already trying to gain a foothold on them. Beyond that was only the impossibly thick and impenetrable mass of brambles. The briars were covered in both long thorns and countless flowers of a wide variety of colors and species, none of which belonged on the type of brambles in front of him. The briars were tangled together until they seemed like a solid structure of plants.

Somewhere buried inside was Crowley’s true form. Aziraphale could sense the fading demonic feeling, but he couldn’t possibly reach him. He was in there. Trapped. Being crushed, strangled, and smothered under the vegetation.

Then he noticed the dark ichor. Staining the thorns in places. Oozing and bleeding out between the briars. Far too much. Reminding Aziraphale of the brighter substance spilled during the first War, angels fighting against their fellow angels. The first violent acts and the first time someone chose to intentionally harm another. Ichor didn’t darken for demons until after the Fall, the brightness leaving them just like Her grace and love left them. They were still angels during the first War. But dark or golden, it was still too familiar and awful seeing it like that.

Aziraphale remembered seeing golden ichor spilling and staining Heaven as the fighting worsened. He hadn’t understood why it was happening and he couldn’t bring himself to strike anyone down like the others. That didn’t mean that others held back. There had been so much violence and pain in a place that was never meant to see such things. And those that didn’t fight back or did not fight well enough to survive were left wounded or destroyed.

The fortunate ones were brought back to the healers, those who knew how to properly repair damage to their true forms. Wounds to someone’s true form was far more difficult to fix than injuries to a physical body. But there had been so many angels bleeding and suffering. So many angels who were bleeding ichor from deep and intentional wounds when before the only injuries had been accidents. They could only heal enough to save their patients’ existences before moving on to the next. They left behind scars and injuries that needed to heal more slowly. It was a matter of saving the most angels possible. There had not been enough time or enough energy to spare to fix everything or stop the pain.

 _Crowley_ was in pain. Not in the distant past. Right now. In pain, bleeding, and slipping away. He couldn’t see the wounds under the brambles, but he could see the dark ichor seeping out. And Aziraphale could barely feel him. Like a guttering flame, barely giving off any light or heat. Fading until it would soon extinguish completely.

He shook off as many of the painful memories as he could and tried to keep his mind in the present. He needed to focus. If Aziraphale couldn’t even remove the brambles tangled in the demon’s corporeal body, how was he supposed to unravel the way they were woven around and through his true form? He couldn’t even imagine how much damage it was causing to Crowley. How could he save him?

He couldn’t.

That realization forced an icy chill deep into his core and sent his thoughts spiraling downward, completely out of control and far too fast. There was nothing that Aziraphale could do to save him. Absolutely nothing. Not really.

The angel’s true form might have limbs and he could try tearing away at the briars. But they were the result of a curse. One that refused to let him miracle away the vegetation. He wouldn’t be able to rip away enough of them fast enough to make a difference.

And the powerful healing miracle that he was using to continuously heal Crowley’s physical body wasn’t enough either. It was keeping his heart beating and preventing him from discorporating for now, but the human body wasn’t meant to function like that.

Aziraphale could feel him fading away. _Dying_. And there was nothing that the angel could do to stop it.

He was going to lose him.

Aziraphale shuddered, curling in and around the dying demon. It wasn’t fair. After everything that happened, they were finally on their own side. Together. Safe. They could finally be with each other without worrying about Heaven or Hell. And after all of that, he couldn’t end like this.

_Please, not like this._

He couldn’t lose Crowley. He wouldn’t be able to bear it. A world without his constant presence would be wrong. Unimaginable. Aziraphale couldn’t do it. He couldn’t—

_Not Crowley._

There had to be something. A way to save him. It couldn’t be over. It couldn’t—

Something deep inside the angel ached even as part of him rebelled against reality. Even thinking about it caused a gaping emptiness to open up inside. Like he was splitting apart. Or like something was being torn out. It _hurt_ —

_Please, don’t leave me._

The curse couldn’t take Crowley from him. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. He couldn’t lose his closest companion. His best friend. The person that Aziraphale lo—

Not him. Not Crowley. Not his—

His thoughts refused to come together and solidify. They refused to continue forward from that point. They kept coming back to the endless cycle of denial, horror, and emotional agony, spiraling down further and further. Trying to drown him in the approaching tides of coming grief. His remaining hope lay shattered all around Aziraphale.

Crowley knew. He knew that it was already too late when he left the thermos behind. He knew.

Why? Why was this happening? Why—

“This is wrong.”

Aziraphale couldn’t help flinching and pulling Crowley closer at the sudden voice. He tried to Look, initially Seeing too much. There was a reason that he never bothered Looking at the world like that. But a moment later, the angel spotted Adam.

There was no mistaking him. He Looked like a normal eleven-year-old human boy in Aziraphale’s Sight. Curly hair, jacket, colorful shirt, and sneakers included. Everything about him Looked ordinary and normal. And that was the problem. Even regular humans without a drop of potential power in their blood didn’t Look human on the current plane that the angel was Viewing. And yet Adam seemed just like himself. His attempt to be normal had gone too far and revealed his unusual nature.

The angel blinked a couple times to clear his vision and focus back on the physical world. He discovered that at some point he’d pulled Crowley close enough that he was partially cradling him in his arms, his upper body held protectively against the angel’s chest. The rattling, weak, and gasping breaths did little to help Aziraphale’s state of mind. Even with angelic healing, his heart could barely beat and struggled to continue.

Adam crouched down next to them, a frown on his face. He stared at Crowley with a worried and frustrated expression. Or perhaps _through_ him. Aziraphale couldn’t help wondering if the child could See the same things that he had.

“This is wrong,” he repeated, his eyes never leaving the demon. “None of that’s supposed to be there. All… tangled up and holding on tight. Not-Dad shouldn’t have put it there. Any of it.”

Aziraphale shivered slightly. At least that answered the question of who placed a curse on Crowley. Satan was responsible. Which was also why the angel couldn’t remove the plants with a miracle. He was outpowered by a considerable margin. Though why Satan decided on brambles and flowers, Aziraphale had no idea.

But the _who_ and the _why_ didn’t matter in the moment. There was only one question that meant anything to him.

“Can… can you _do_ anything for him, Adam?” he asked shakily. “I can’t… I can’t help him. I can’t get rid of the flowers and briars. Can you?”

Still frowning with concentration, he said, “I can try. It’s… _trickier_ now. Have to do some stuff the hard way. And I can’t just get rid of the flowers or they’ll just come back. I can tell. We need to get rid of what’s causing them too.”

Aziraphale pulled a few broken fragments of hope back together. Maybe Adam wasn’t the Anti-Christ anymore, but he was _something_. He was offering a _chance_. And if there was a chance to save Crowley, then Aziraphale would take it.

“How can we help?” asked Anathema. “Just tell us what to do.”

Glancing up at her, Adam said, “You could probably help pull.”

And with that vague statement, the boy plunged his hands into Crowley’s chest. The angel barely managed to avoid flinching at the sight. It hadn’t exactly been done casually; Adam’s expression was far too serious for that. But he hadn’t hesitated for a second. And it was certainly not something that even an immortal saw every day. It almost appeared like Adam was reaching through an optical illusion, as if Crowley wasn’t solid and real in the angel’s arms.

Then, wincing slightly, Adam pulled one hand out again. Dragging a tangled mass of brambles and blossoms that he shoved away before reaching back inside again. The briars were still attached as the boy continued to pull more and more out. And after a moment of shocked horror at what they were seeing, Anathema and Newt shook off their paralysis enough to start yanking on the thorny strands already exposed. They couldn’t reach into whatever gap in reality that Adam could, but they could at least pull the briars out like a prickly rope.

It took Aziraphale far too long to realize that he could miracle up thick gardening gloves for the humans to keep the thorns from stabbing them.

All four of them were crowded around Crowley’s limp figure. There was barely room for all of them. While the humans focused on the actual extraction, the angel tried to heal the damage left behind. The briars slid out of the demon’s chest easily, not catching on anything as they pulled. How ever that Adam was pulling out the brambles and flowers, at least it didn’t allow the thorns to tear away at the demon more on the way out. But there was still plenty of cuts and scratches from before. And now Aziraphale could heal them without the plants immediately slicing the wounds back open.

The bleeding stopped. Without flowers and brambles crowding into the organs, his breathing and heartbeat gradually evened out. Growing easier and steadier. Discorporation became less and less of a threat.

That didn’t mean that Crowley was _safe_ though. Saving his physical body mean nothing if Crowley’s true form couldn’t survive.

Aziraphale glanced at the growing pile of brambles. There was already more than could physically fit in the demon’s chest, hinting that they were already pull them from a different plane where they were tangled in Crowley’s essence. Aziraphale still didn’t understand why Satan would curse him with plants. It felt too specific. There had to be an underlying message that he didn’t understand. And there were so many different colorful flowers mixed in with the briars, none of which belonged on the same plant together and very few that naturally had thorns. He could recognize the roses in different colors, the tulips, the lilacs, the violets, the forget-me-nots, the marigolds…

Realization washed over him like waves of sickening horror. The pressed flowers. Every species that he’d ever found in his books were growing on the brambles that were trying to kill Crowley. The ones that had been growing up his throat and trying to reach out of his mouth. An obvious and awful explanation tried to assert itself, but Aziraphale couldn’t face it. He forced it down. He didn’t want to think about it. That could wait.

Now that Crowley’s corporeal body was stabilized, Aziraphale turned his attention back towards the deeper issues. Once more, he Looked towards the demon’s true form.

Between Adam, Anathema, and Newt’s efforts, the thick mass of brambles had thinned noticeably from before. He could see black scale-covered coils through the vegetation. An endless serpentine shape that wrapped around itself, not quite like a living Mobius Strip. The loops wove around each other and twisted until he resembled a complicated and beautiful Celtic knot or how M.C. Escher might design a serpent. And at certain angles, Aziraphale could glimpse the dark core at the center of it all. There was still plenty hidden by the plants, but he could still See plenty. But all that Aziraphale could focus on was the now-exposed wounds.

The damage would have made his stomach twist with nausea if Aziraphale paid any attention to his corporeal body. No matter where he Looked, the plants had left their mark. Scales were torn or scraped off in rough patches. Deep cuts crisscrossed the dark coils. And while none of the eyes running along his length were open, most of them were scratched into uselessness or were completely gone and only empty bleeding sockets were left behind. In several places, long deep lacerations ran along the coils and eviscerating him. Splitting him open along part of his length, spilling out more brambles from where they’d been growing inside. The glimpses of his core at the center of his true form showed it to be a guttering, fading, and dying thing, on the verge of extinguishing at any moment. And dark ichor oozed and bled sluggishly from the ruined and broken form. Far too much ichor.

How could this have happened? How could Crowley be reduced to such a state? How could he survive it? The fragile and broken fragments of hope weren’t strong enough to sustain Aziraphale in the face of such destruction and injuries.

_He’s going to die. It’s too late. It won’t be enough. I’m going to lose him._

“He’s not going to die,” said Adam firmly. Aziraphale didn’t know if he was addressing the angel’s fears or the floral curse itself. “I promise.”

The boy didn’t say it like he hoped it was true or that he had faith. Adam said it as if Crowley’s survival was an absolute certainty. One that would be true even if he had to force reality to bend backwards on itself to obey. An inescapable fact of the universe. Aziraphale didn’t know how long the effects would last since Adam was no longer the Anti-Christ and his abilities were not the same anymore, but for the moment… the demon could not die. He was pinned firmly to existence.

With that small reassurance, Aziraphale could focus on what Adam was doing with his hands buried in the demon’s essence. He wasn’t pulling on the briars much anymore; he was leaving that part to Anathema and Newt while only yanking on the brambles directly in his way. Instead the boy was reaching toward the faint, weak, and flickering core at the center of Crowley’s true form. He frowned, focusing on something. Then he started tugging and prying at something buried there.

Gentle and careful, he pulled at a black, thick, and sticky substance. Trying to pry it out and away from the deepest and most vulnerable part of the demon. It was dark, choking, and thick, coating and clinging like tar to both the boy and any part of Crowley that it touched. And powerful. As Adam exposed it slowly, Aziraphale could feel the foul and unnerving power. It felt wrong. On a fundamental level, it felt vile and wrong. And now that it was pulled into view, he could See that the plants seemed to be growing out of thick, oozing, and viscous darkness. That was the source of it all. The substance that Adam was slowly trying to pull out of Crowley was the curse itself.

The tar-like material didn’t want to let go. Despite Adam’s careful attempt to remove it, thick tendrils clung to the demon’s deepest core. And when he pulled harder, Aziraphale glimpsed something brighter in its grasp. Not bright like shining with an actual light. But still bright in its own way, something in between an iridescent gas and a pool of gossamer fabric. Bright, warm, and precious. Aziraphale wished that he could See that brightness better, but the dark tendril clung to it. Nearly concealing it, the choking and viscous darkness refused to release it.

The angel could See that Adam might be able to rip the dark and thick substance out of the demon, but it would probably tear that tangled brightness out along with it. And maybe it would be worth it to remove the source of those brambles. Maybe it would be worth the cost if it helped preserve the demon’s life. Aziraphale couldn’t even tell what the warm bright thing actually _was_ beneath the clinging dark curse. But something in him warned that losing that brightness would be terrible for Crowley.

“Let go,” muttered Adam. “This is wrong. Let go.”

With a surprising amount of patience, the boy slowly plucked each individual and sticky tendril free of the guttering core and the brightness. It was time consuming and slow, giving Anathema and Newt a chance to pull out more of the brambles and for Aziraphale to ensure that Crowley’s physical body was completely healed. But Adam didn’t stop. He kept concentrating on the task. And eventually only a single clinging tendril of darkness held on to the brightness, stretching the warm bright thing taunt between Crowley and the curse itself. Like a twisted game of tug-a-war. It was only a question of which would give first.

Glaring at the tar-like curse, Adam said, “Let _go_.”

Whether in response to the boy’s command or the pressure, the dark substance finally tore away and let the brightness sink back into the central core of Crowley’s true form. And in that same instant, Aziraphale felt like the wind was knocked out of his own body and was left gasping. He blinked rapidly, trying to focus as his vision settled back toward the physical world. The sensation was overwhelming and somehow more shocking than anything else that the angel had experienced that day.

Love. Warm, powerful waves of it washing over him. Not like the constant and strong background love that filled Tadfield. The source of the love was weaker; very few entities were as powerful as the former Anti-Christ and his lifetime of love for his home, but the source felt especially weak and frail. But even if the source was weak, the love itself was strong. Strong, warm, bright, and very specific.

And impossible.

Aziraphale could barely think as Adam removed his hands from Crowley’s chest, dragging out the dark glob of the curse and the last of the brambles. He could barely think as the boy tossed it away from them, making Anathema and Newt jump away with a yelp of surprise. All that Aziraphale could think about was the warm emotions that he could now feel radiating from the limp figure in his arms.

Demons can’t love. That was a fact. Everyone knew that. And after six thousand years of close contact with one specific demon, Aziraphale had gathered enough evidence to know that it was true. A demon can like someone or even care about them in their own way. But they couldn’t love. No angel had ever sensed love from them because demons literally were incapable of the emotion.

And yet, Aziraphale could feel it. As soon as Adam tore the curse free, Aziraphale felt love coming from Crowley. Strong, warm, and soothing love.

Love for Warlock. Love for the world. Love for hundreds of different children over the course of thousands of years. And a very strong and multi-faceted love that was specifically for Aziraphale.

What did it mean? How was this possible? Did removing that curse suddenly allow Crowley to experience love?

…Or did removing the curse from him simply make it possible for Aziraphale to _sense_ it?

“Mr. Aziraphale,” said Adam, forcing the angel to pay attention to his surroundings again. “Can you get rid of that?”

Blinking in confusion for a moment, Aziraphale’s eyes landed on the dark and thick substance lying in the uncomfortably large pile of brambles and flowers. The source of all the damage to the demon in his arms. The reason why Crowley had been hurt. Was _still_ hurt, his true form a shredded and wounded mess. And that thought sparked something ancient, angry, and protective in Aziraphale for just a moment.

One hand let go of the demon briefly to snap out sharply and a lightning bolt fell from the clear skies to strike the flowers and the dark curse. Not quite a Bolt of Divine Judgment, but still crackling with holy energy drawn down from up above. All that was left was scorched earth and a mild buzzing sensation running through the angel’s body.

He was never one for smiting, but that doesn’t mean he was incapable.

Though a brief look at the others sent a surge of guilt through Aziraphale as he realized that _maybe_ he shouldn’t have done that so close to the humans. They remained untouched, but they were trying to rub the momentary blindness from their eyes and the static was doing some unusual things to Anathema’s hair.

Unsurprisingly, Adam was the first one to recover from the shock. He looked over Crowley once more. Or perhaps, Looked over.

“All that wrong stuff’s out now,” he said. “But I don’t know if I can fix the demon-y parts of him. I don’t Know all of that stuff anymore and I don’t want to accidentally mess up. It was tricky enough getting rid of the bits that don’t belong. Fixing the rest would be even trickier.”

Trickier. That was one way to describe it. Aziraphale remembered the extent of the injuries to Crowley’s true self. Deep wounds oozing and bleeding ichor and a nearly-extinguished dark core at the center of it all. Death almost claimed him and _would_ have claimed him if the boy hadn’t essentially forced him to remain in existence. And that wasn’t a permanent solution. Crowley still needed help. His true form needed to be healed before the effect of Adam’s influence faded. And healing someone’s true form was delicate and intense work, something that most angels never attempted. It was better to bring the wounded patient to one of the healers who were specifically created for such specialized work. They had a better chance of survival in the care of an expert.

But there was no one, angel or demon, who would help Crowley. No one in Heaven or Hell would aid either of them. They were on their own. Their own side.

“Does he still need fixing?” asked Newt. “I mean, he looks a lot better than he did earlier. He’s breathing right and everything.”

“But his aura is still a wreck.” Anathema’s tone was serious, but gentle. “Adam’s right. The curse and the plants are gone, but it wasn’t an immediate solution to the whole thing.”

Aziraphale wasn’t created to be a healer. He was created to guard, to protect, and occasionally to fight. Not that he liked fighting, but he was capable of it. Healing deep and cruel injuries to someone’s true form, the kind that left them bleeding ichor and on the verge of dying, was not something that he was made to do. Even an actual healer might have trouble with such extensive damage. Aziraphale wasn’t created with the innate knowledge and skill set to attempt something like that. But he was the only one available.

A terrifying and overwhelming thought. But far less frightening than the idea of coming so far only to lose Crowley anyway because he lacked the courage and willpower to attempt such a task.

It would take strength, patience, and concentration. What Adam did to ensure that Crowley wouldn’t die might buy him time, but Aziraphale couldn’t wait too long. He wasn’t certain that he would be able to do a good enough job putting Crowley back together. But he had to try. He was Crowley’s only chance.

_Please let this work. Don’t let me fail him. I can’t lose him._

Aziraphale shifted his hold on the limp figure in his arms until he could stand up while cradling the demon close. Crowley’s head lolled against his shoulder. Aziraphale didn’t know if Crowley was particular light or if it was just his angelic strength. Either way, holding him like that was simple enough. And the state of his corporeal body was a comfort, even if the knowledge of his hidden wounds weighed heavily on the angel’s mind. He could feel Crowley breathing against his neck, soft and steady. Some of the color had returned to his face as well.

And he could still feel the impossible love coming from the demon in warm waves.

“Ms. Device? Mr. Pulsifer?” he asked, his voice coming out far steadier than he expected it too. “I apologize for the imposition, but would it be possible for me to borrow a bedroom for a little while? I need somewhere quiet and calm. Somewhere that I can concentrate on healing Crowley the rest of the way. It… might take some time and I don’t want to risk being interrupted or distracted in the middle of it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And despite everything, Aziraphale still doesn't admit the true extent of his feelings to himself. Instead, we get Adam yanking out the curse. And because he's nicer than his not-dad, Satan, Adam manages to do it without removing Crowley's capacity to love.


	10. Continuing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, now that we’re more or less past the intense part of the fic, it is time for the nicer things. Comfort, reassurance, healing, honest conversation… Things like that. And a little guilt. Got to have a bit of guilt too.
> 
> And while I initially planned for this to be the last chapter, it started getting too long. So I broke it into two chapters. I don't think you'll mind.

Touch.

He didn’t truly wake up. Only the vaguest, most distant sense of awareness reacted to the faint sensation, barely reaching him in the dark depths of unconsciousness. But that tiny piece of him stirred weakly. Noticing the contact.

There may have been something before. Painful tearing and removing. Too many sensations. But none of them had reached him in that distant place that he’d sank. Not until now. Now, the faintest input brushed against his sense of self, trying to tug him back towards the far away destination of consciousness. Not quite succeeding, but trying.

Something touching him. Not his corporeal form. Anything on the physical plane of reality seemed too distant. Nothing from there could reach him. But something touched his true form. Hands or paws or talons or wings or some type of limbs.

Hands. Hands were simpler for his weak awareness to comprehend.

There were hands touching him. Strong and powerful hands. Powerful enough to tear him apart without effort. Strong hands practically radiating uncomfortable energy and power. Dangerous hands. But their touch was gentle. Careful. Soft.

Familiar?

Hands around his core. His dark core of demonic energy that was supposed to burn the deepest red. Not anymore. Too weak. Too hurt. Guttering, flickering, and barely burning. Somehow not going out yet. Not sure why.

Hands cupping his core carefully. Coaxing strength and stability into him. Using power that felt wrong in him. _Holy_. Uncomfortable. Uncomfortable power, but nothing worse than uncomfortable. Should hurt and burn, but familiar instead. Familiar and reassuring.

Hands tracing their way along his coils. Healing deep scratches and cuts. Easing the pain. Slow and gentle hands, touching everywhere. Using power that felt uncomfortable, but didn’t hurt.

A warm feeling around him. A feeling of _safe_. Of _protection_. Of _belonging_ and _home_ and—

 _Pain_. Flinching away weakly. Cringing at the sharp agony. The hands had brushed against one of his longest and deepest wounds.

Hurt. Everything hurt. Always hurting. But the new spike of pain was sharp and vicious.

Words. Far away and distant words. He couldn’t understand the words, but he could make out the tone. A voice speaking gently. Apologetically. A familiar voice.

There were hands on his wings. His wings didn’t hurt. Only small scratches there. Hands gently touching his wings. Not to heal, but to comfort. To sooth.

The tone spoke of _apologies_ and _reassurance_. Of _worry_. Of _care_ and _affection_ and _longing_. Of _heartache_ and _regrets_. Of _hope_. Of complicated things that he couldn’t identify, but made him feel warm and safe. The words continued to wrap around him, never stopping.

A gentle voice and soft hands. Both were familiar, comforting, and warm. He didn’t mind the pain as much, listening to the indistinct voice.

Apologies continued, the voice washing over him. Hands moving to touch the wound again. _Pain_. Hands holding the edges together. Healing the cut slowly back together. Hurting. Hurt too much, but the words continued.

Strong and soft hands. Gentle and reassuring voice. A familiar and comforting presence. He wasn’t alone. Safe.

Tired. Hurt. Weak.

Rest. Needed to rest and heal. Awareness slipped away, letting him sink back towards the embrace of the waiting darkness.

* * *

Crowley hadn’t really considered what oblivion would be like, but he certainly wouldn’t have imagined that it would smell like clean linens and sunshine.

Then he realized that was a rather strange first thought as unconsciousness slowly started rolling away. Especially when he never expected to think ever again.

Everything in his mind still felt a bit muddled, but he remembered some. He remembered letting go. Letting himself succumb. No more resisting. No more fighting the inevitable. He remembered vague and fragmented dreams. More impressions and feelings rather than proper thoughts or memories. And that should have been it. Crowley knew that it was over and that he should be gone now. And yet his sluggish mind was pulling itself out of the muck and he could smell cotton sheets that had been dried outside on a clothesline. Impossible, but apparently that was the reality that he was facing.

He slowly became aware of other things. Like a heavy exhaustion weighing him down. An exhaustion that begged him to sleep for another century, something beyond bone-deep. Making it hard to think. He didn’t even want to imagine moving his body. But at the same time, he felt impossibly light. Overwhelming light, like he’d lost a great deal of tension and… and…

His mind stumbled and his thoughts drifted.

Crowley took a deep breath, the slow and steady rhythm of it relaxing. That felt strange. He wasn’t certain why. It made his head spin, breathing too deeply. He couldn’t focus. He couldn’t concentrate on figuring it out.

More sensations trickled in. He was lying on his back with something soft under his head. A bed and a pillow. A warm blanket tucked around him, his hands resting on top. Not his bed. He could smell the cotton linens under him instead of his silk sheets. And he could pick out a few other scents. Fresh air carried in by a gentle breeze from an open window. Brushing against his face while carrying traces of flowers and spring. And something else. Another scent buried beneath the others. One that he _knew_.

And there was someone gently holding his hand. He could feel their warm touch, fingers wrapped around his.

For a few moments, Crowley didn’t bother trying to think or put the scattered puzzle pieces of his mind back together. He didn’t think about what happened or why he wasn’t dead or why breathing too deep made his head spin or why the feeling of his slow and steady heartbeat seemed unusual to him. His mind refused to focus properly on any of those topics. Instead, all he wanted to concentrate on was the feeling of the fingers curled around his hand and the wonderfully familiar scent.

Maybe it was a dream. Maybe he was still dying. Maybe he was sinking towards oblivion and his imagination managed to come up with something soothing to comfort him. It was too perfect to be real. He was comfortable, relaxed, and not alone.

Or maybe it was real. Maybe he was actually alive and… and…

Something nagged at the corner of his mind, persistent even as his thoughts were still trying to pull themselves together. Something was off. He hadn’t slept in months. And there was no pressure in his chest. And the pain… The pain that had been his constant companion for so long to the point it was essentially background noise… Pain on every level and always there…

He didn’t feel the briars and the flowers.

That thought made his breath catch in his throat for a moment. The gentle grip on his hand tightened briefly, only loosening again when his breathing returned to normal.

The realization sent Crowley’s heart pounding, like a drum beating inside his head. A very clear train of thought forced itself through his muddled mind. One built on well-established facts.

The flowers were gone. The flowers only ever disappeared when they were burned back by hellfire, they were yanked out by Satan along with the ability to love, or they were pruned away by someone loving him back. He had no access to hellfire currently and Crowley still loved the angel, so the first two possibilities were impossible. The flowers that were previously killing him were all connected to his feelings for Aziraphale. The flowers were _gone_.

Did… Did that mean…

He didn’t even notice that his fingers were curling closed until he felt a gentle squeeze of his hand and heard the soft sound of something shifting next to him.

“Crowley? Are you…?”

The quiet murmur coaxed his eyes to grudgingly open. And he immediately winced at the early morning light. But after a couple of tired blinks, Crowley’s vision cleared and he even managed to turn his head slightly towards the familiar and comforting scent. And then he saw him.

“A… Aziraphale?” he whispered, his voice coming out rough.

The angel visibly slumped in his chair with relief. Not his armchair. A wooden one that didn’t look very comfortable. The kind that would leave someone stiff if they sat in it for more than an hour. He couldn’t tell if the angel was stiff, but Aziraphale certainly looked exhausted. Especially for someone who didn’t need or bother with sleep. There seemed to be new lines on his face and dark circles. And even if Aziraphale wore a relieved smile as he looked at the demon, he was blinking rapidly and his eyes were too shiny and wet.

Something twisted in Crowley at the sight. Aziraphale was upset. He was upset, but trying to hide it. And that was wrong. He was upsetting the angel and that was utterly wrong. Crowley could no more ignore Aziraphale’s distress than he could bathe in holy water. He needed to help. He needed to fix it.

Crowley was already struggling to push himself up with exhausted limbs by the time Aziraphale realized what he was planning. Then, a look of panic and worry flashing across the angel’s face, Aziraphale released the grip on his hand and tried to push the demon back down. Not using much force, but still firmly pressing Crowley into laying down.

“Hold on,” said Aziraphale, his voice still a little strained tight. “Easy now.”

“ _Mmf_ ,” he argued rather articulately.

“Let me… _There_. All right. Lie back, please. For my peace of mind, at least.”

Crowley didn’t have the energy to resist much. Especially not when Aziraphale used that pleading tone. So he wasn’t that surprised when the angel forced him to lean back. But Aziraphale had managed to rearrange the pillows to let him sit up a little. He couldn’t help the small sigh of relief as he sank back into the soft surface.

He did miss the feeling of the angel holding his hand though.

“Where… are we?” asked Crowley, trying to ignore how rough the words sounded. At least his head seemed to be clearing some. “How…?”

He didn’t recognize the small white room, barely large enough for the bed, chair, and nightstand. It was a plain space. Sparse of any decorations, but in a different way than his flat. Pale wooden furniture and fabrics, making the gray pajamas the demon was wearing all the more noticeable. And Crowley knew that he wasn’t in London. The scent of flowers on the breeze and the lack of traffic sounds coming through the open window proved that much.

He needed answers. He needed to know where they were, but it was more important that he find out what happened. Crowley needed to know how much Aziraphale knew about everything. What did the angel know about what happened? Did he know about the curse? Who imbedded it in Crowley’s essence and when? What caused it to activate? What could help prune back the flowers?

Did the angel know that Crowley loved him?

“You’re somewhere safe,” he reassured the demon quietly. “Ms. Device and Mr. Pulsifer were kind enough to allow us the use of their spare bedroom. I brought you back here after… after we found… after Adam helped with the… with the curse that you were under.”

“Adam?”

He nodded slowly and said, “The curse? The one that was causing all those flowers and almost… Well, I suppose you know what it was doing. Adam managed to pull it out of your essence before it… before you…” Aziraphale swallowed hard, taking a moment to compose himself a bit and then giving him a weak smile. “He did make me promise afterwards to let him know when you were feeling better. I believe he wanted to send you a card.”

Crowley tried to ignore the way it felt like something deep inside him dropped. Like his heart was reenacting that million-light-year freestyle dive into a pool of boiling sulfur. He should be happy. Thrilled. The curse was gone. Actually gone, not just waiting for the next time he cared about a human kid or grew attached to another clever and curious human. No more flowers or briars. And yet he couldn’t deny the way a fragile and impossible hope had formed a few moments ago. A hope that now cracked and crumbled as he realized that it wasn’t Aziraphale’s love that spared him. Just the intervention of the former Anti-Christ.

Not that he wasn’t grateful to be alive and still existing. But it didn’t stop his dashed hopes from hurting.

“Guess yesterday was busy then,” he mumbled, managing a weak shrug.

While Crowley remained a bit confused about the exact sequence of events, he remembered that he lost consciousness in the afternoon and he could see through the window that it was now morning. He didn’t know how long it would have taken Adam or Aziraphale to find him, though he didn’t think that he would have survived long alone. And he didn’t know which one found him first, the kid or the angel. But he could observe enough to know that he’d been asleep all night. He could only hope that Aziraphale didn’t spend all those hours worrying, though Crowley suspected that he did.

A complicated expression flickering across his face, Aziraphale said, “Crowley… It wasn’t yesterday. It’s been… Even after the plants were gone, you were so hurt. Not just your body, but your true form. I didn’t know if I could heal you. I tried and some of it… There was just so many scratches and cuts and your _eyes_ … And even after I did everything that I could try, you were weak and… I’m not a healer. I could fix your body, but… I didn’t know if it would be enough. I didn’t know if you would ever wake up.”

The quiet and anxious stream of words finally stopped, the angel wringing his hands in his lap. Crowley wanted to reach out and give them a reassuring squeeze. But casual contact wasn’t something that they did. Not anymore. In other times and cultures, they were more open about such gestures. He’d even kissed the angel in greetings at different points. But ever since the Victorian era, Aziraphale had clung to that concept of a respectable distance and the British stiff upper lip. Maybe the angel would hold his hand like that occasionally, but it was something that Aziraphale would need to initiate. Crowley knew better than to push.

“What happened? The picnic? Us finding you _dying_ alone in the middle of a field? Adam removing that curse? It wasn’t yesterday,” said Aziraphale quietly. “That was almost a month ago.”

A month.

Not that long in the grand scheme of things. Crowley had certainly slept for longer than that in the past. Some decades or even _centuries_ deserved to be skipped over. But there was a difference between sleeping that long because he chose it and being unconscious for an extended period because he almost ceased to exist.

A month. Aziraphale had been waiting for him to wake up and probably worrying constantly for a month.

Now that he knew to look for it, Crowley could see the signs. There was dust on the nightstand. A thin layer, but it was there. And the shoulders of Aziraphale’s coat had a hint of gray. More dust, as if the angel sat there and barely moved. As if he kept perfectly still long enough for dust to settle.

No human could stay that motionless long enough. And in most cases, it was hard to imagine the angel remaining that still either. Aziraphale’s natural state had constant small movements: fidgeting with his hands, tugging on his clothes, small shifts when standing, and even full-body wiggles of pleasure and excitement. But Crowley also knew that Aziraphale could demonstrate both incredible patience and focus when properly motivated. He could sit motionless for hours or days, absorbed in a good book. Crowley had seen it happen more times than he could count.

But there was no book. Not on the nightstand and not on his lap. There was nothing that could have occupied the angel during his self-appointed vigil. Aziraphale had sat beside him for a month, anxious and hoping. Without any distractions. All of that patience and focus had been directed solely at Crowley.

That realization felt a little overwhelming.

“I didn’t mean to worry you like that, angel,” he said quietly. “I never wanted that. But I’m fine now. Honest.”

Hands tightening slightly in his lap, Aziraphale said, “Please don’t lie to me to make me feel better. I managed to close the wounds on your true form and they aren’t bleeding anymore, but I couldn’t completely heal them. I’m not… Hopefully they’ll continue to improve, but it’ll be the long way. I know that they must still hurt, so please don’t pretend that they don’t.”

Crowley’s hand moved a little closer across the blanket, but not yet reaching far enough to touch. Aziraphale was right that the damage wasn’t completely gone. If he concentrated, Crowley could feel it. The dull aches of healing. He didn’t want to investigate closer and see what state the brambles left his true form in. But he barely noticed the remaining pain.

He’d long since figured out that his sensitivity to pain was messed up and the healing wounds were nothing compared to the constant agony that he was accustomed to.

“I’m not lying. I mean, yeah, there’s some bits that are aching, but I didn’t really notice until you said something,” he said. “And you keep acting like you didn’t do a good job and like you failed somehow because you’re not an expert at something you’ve never tried before. But you didn’t fail. Not even close. _Gabriel_ certainly wouldn’t have been able to pull it off as well as you did.” Crowley smiled, halfway wishing that he knew where his sunglasses were. “I’m here, awake, and fine. I feel better than I have in a very long time, angel.”

For a moment, he could see some of the tension and stress ease. While Aziraphale didn’t give him one of those bright and open smiles that always made Crowley feel warm, the corners of his mouth did raise slightly.

And then that hint of a smile slipped away, like a cloud moving to block the warmth of the sunshine.

“How long?” asked Aziraphale.

“Huh?”

“How long were you cursed like that? How long were you dying and didn’t tell me?” His hands fidgeted and twisted slightly in the angel’s lap. “Adam said that Satan did it. That he was responsible for the curse. And at first, I thought he must have found a way to reach you at some point after the failed Apocalypse and the following trial. But—”

“It didn’t have anything to do with the world not ending,” he interrupted. “Promise. It wasn’t some punishment for our involvement. He didn’t single me out. He cursed all of us demons.”

“Why? Why would he do… Does that mean all demons have those… those thorns and such trying to destroy them? Why would he try to wipe out all demons like that?”

“It’s not like that, angel,” he assured. “I mean, he cursed all of us at the same time. But just because it’s in us doesn’t mean anything. Those plants don’t start growing until we activate the curse. _Then_ it tries to kill us.” He managed a tired shrug. “Some demon started trying to cause trouble right after the Fall and Satan took it personally. So all of us get to live under the threat of impending doom. Maybe he thought it would boost group morale or something.”

Aziraphale frowned thoughtfully, staring down at his hands. Crowley could see his mind going over what he’d said, picking his words apart and studying the information. Comparing it to his own theories and observations. Part of Crowley started worrying about what ideas that the angel might be having. The other part of him was simply enjoying watching Aziraphale work.

He was so clever. Far cleverer than Heaven would ever believe. He had his moments where he was too stubborn and too in denial for his own good, but Aziraphale was smart, observant, and magnificent when it came to unraveling clues.

Crowley loved his brilliant angel.

The smile twitched on Aziraphale’s face again before he blinked in surprise. Then he looked back up at the demon with a suspicious expression.

“And what exactly activates the curse?”

“ _Ngk_.”

And _there_ was the topic that Crowley should have been leading the conversation away from instead of towards. Because answering that question opened the door to lots of more specific questions. It would all come out. Especially the guilt. Awkwardness and guilt. And Crowley didn’t go to all the trouble of sneaking off to die alone without a word just to let the truth make Aziraphale now feel guilty over things that weren’t his fault.

“Crowley,” said the angel, his tone firm and yet pleading. “What causes the curse to activate?”

Where were his sunglasses? Still out in that field, under the young apple tree? Crowley desperately wished that he had them back. Or even one of spares from the Bentley. The squirming feeling inside made him want to hide, even if only a little. He couldn’t meet Aziraphale’s gaze. He didn’t want to answer that question. After six thousand years, he still didn’t feel ready to face the angel’s reactions.

But Crowley had never been able to deny Aziraphale anything.

“It’s… You see… _Gnk_.” Crowley closed his eyes and took a deep breath, distantly appreciating the lack of pain. “Sorry. Never planned how to do this. ‘S hard.”

“Take your time,” he said patiently. “As long as you eventually tell me, I can wait.”

Crowley took a few more deep breaths, trying to settle his nerves and thoughts. He couldn’t lie. He couldn’t evade. Aziraphale deserved the truth. All of it.

Everything would change. He didn’t know what would happen after he confessed his oldest secret, but things couldn’t remain the same after that. Even the best-case scenario would involve guilt, awkwardness, and possibly the angel trying to be sympathetic while explaining that he didn’t feel the same way. Which Crowley already knew and had known for six thousand years, but that wouldn’t stop it from being unpleasant to hear out loud. At least the best-case scenario contained the possibility of them moving past this and continuing their friendship. He was hoping for that option.

But he would have to take the plunge and lay all his cards on the table. There was no turning back.

“There’s… There’s a reason why everyone says that…” Crowley swallowed, still not meeting the angel’s eyes. “There’s a reason why everyone says that demons can’t love. But it’s not for the reasons that you probably think.” His words came out stiff and stilted, but he kept going. “Love… _Any_ kind of love, not just the flashy romantic love that humans write poems and songs about… Satan said that…. The curse? He said some of us still loved Her, Heaven, and the other angels even after Falling. And they clearly didn’t love us back. How could they? And he said that we shouldn’t waste time loving someone who would never return it. That we shouldn’t love. Called it a _weed_.”

His fingers were digging into the blanket. Crowley focused on the pale blanket, not looking at anything else. It was durable fabric. His grip was fairly tight, but it wasn’t tearing.

He was rambling. He knew that he was rambling. He was rambling almost like how Aziraphale would when he was nervous. But at least he was managing words and not just strings of consonants and hissing.

“And that’s the curse. If a demon is dumb enough to feel love, those flowers start growing and slowly kills them. Starting in their true form, but later crowding into their corporeal body. Most are lucky if they survive a century or two like that. Lost lots of demons at the beginning to the curse, before everyone… before they stopped trusting and caring. Most of the ones that survived learned not to get attached. Because it’s harder to love if you aren’t attached. But you still get a few even now who… Not as many, but it still happens sometimes.” Crowley chuckled, but it was a rough and humorless sound. “That’s the thing. You can’t _force_ love. You can’t force yourself to love someone and you can’t force yourself to stop loving them.”

Crowley tried not to cringe into the pillows as he waited. He knew what came next. Aziraphale would ask _who_ Crowley loved. As if there could be anyone else. He would ask who and when. And Crowley would have to answer.

“That’s terrible,” said Aziraphale. “Sentencing all those demons to death? Just because they love someone?”

Shrugging slightly, he said, “It’s Hell and Satan isn’t exactly boss of the millennia. Not supposed to be fair or nice. He was trying to make a point. Besides, there’s a few ways to deal with the whole… murder love flowers thing. A few loopholes. Satan even left a way to get rid of them if you don't mind the cost.”

“Wait,” said Aziraphale, his voice taking on a louder and sharper edge. Crowley risked a look and saw the angel’s expression shifting towards realization and anger. “You mean, you knew that there was a way to break the curse? You knew a way _before_ Adam figured out how to save you? There was a way to help you and you still didn’t tell me?” There was barely muted fury in his words, but also a month of fear and dread mixed in with far too much hurt. “I could have helped you. Even if it was difficult, we could have figured it out. I would have helped you. You _know_ I would have helped if I knew what was wrong. But you didn’t… You’d rather disappear somewhere and die alone than tell me what’s wrong… You’d rather leave me…”

The way that his voice cracked near the end, all the anger melting into sorrow and hurt, triggered something instinctual in the demon. Crowley couldn’t help himself. Not with the way Aziraphale’s words had tightened and his eyes turned shiny again. Every part of the demon shrieked at him to fix it. To do something. And no amount of exhaustion and nerves could resist that urge. His hand released its death grip on the blanket and moved. Crowley was holding Aziraphale’s hand before he even realized what he was doing.

At least the physical contact seemed to startle the angel enough that his shiny and wet eyes didn’t end up with actual tears.

“We knew there was a way to survive the curse, even before Adam was born and had his little rebellion against his destiny. But it’s not exactly a good solution, angel,” he said, squeezing his hand. “‘S not worth it.”

“Your _life_ wasn’t worth it?”

“We’ve been on this planet long enough to know the difference between survival and living.” Crowley knew that he should probably let go, but he didn’t want to relinquish his grip on the angel’s hand quite yet. “Closest thing that demons could do to breaking the curse once it started… If they wanted to survive it, they could beg Satan to tear it out. And most of the time, he would. The problem is that he’ll also rip out your ability to love at all in the process. I’ve seen what happens when demons agree to that. They… They’re never the same afterwards. They aren’t themselves anymore.” Crowley shook his head slightly. “They end up colder, crueler, and empty. Just… shells. Shells of their old selves. They don’t care about anything anymore. I wasn’t going to let that happen to me.”

In a small voice, Aziraphale said, “Oh… That’s… oh my…”

“Yeah, not a good option. Not for me. I wouldn’t have cared about the world or stopping the Apocalypse or supporting Adam when things were going wrong or…”

Or Aziraphale. He wouldn’t have cared about Aziraphale.

Looking away from the angel and out the window, Crowley continued, “That was the only permanent way to get rid of the curse, but there were a few ways to slow it down. Buy yourself some time. Hellfire could burn the flowers back for a little while. But they always grew back. You might get a reprieve for a few weeks or a month, but they would always come back just as bad as before.”

“And that’s… not been an option since they tried to execute us,” he said quietly. The angel twisted his hand in Crowley’s grip, letting him squeeze back gently. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about… I didn’t imagine that being barred from Hell would have such consequences for you. This is all my—”

“ _No_ , angel,” said Crowley firmly, forcing himself to turn back and look Aziraphale in the eyes. “Don’t you dare be sorry. Nothing that happened was your fault. None of it. There was nothing that you could do about it. And if you think for even a moment that somehow _Satan’s_ stupid curse or _my_ feelings are somehow your fault, I swear every book in your shop will end up in some school library where seven-year-olds will doodle in the margins and dog-ear the pages. Do you understand me?”

Aziraphale’s expression flashed through several different emotions, ranging from being comforted by the reassurance to some lingering guilt that he couldn’t quite banish to a rather interesting horror and amusement combo at the threat. Despite the current conversation and his general exhaustion, Crowley smiled.

But eventually Aziraphale seemed to settle on a look of quiet reluctance. As if he didn’t want to ask the next question either, but felt like he needed to say it.

“How long were those flowers…? How long was the curse active in you?”

And there it was. One of the questions that Crowley had hoped to avoid as long as possible. Though not the one that he thought the angel would ask first.

“Not going to ask who?” he asked quietly, his throat tightening against his will.

Aziraphale shook his head and said, “I already know. Ever since… When Adam removed the curse, things changed. The curse was… blocking it. Or hiding it. Or something. But now… I can sense your love like I could anyone else.”

Shock rolled over Crowley like a wave, eyes wide as his mouth moved wordlessly. He knew. That realization rang in his head like a bell. He _knew_. Aziraphale could sense it.

He knew.

“I should have realized before then,” he continued. “The humans could see it and they haven’t known us nearly as long. I should have figured it out sooner, Crowley. But I couldn’t sense it.”

Somehow managing to find his voice, he said, “Don’t blame you, angel. It’d be like having perfect vision, but someone telling you that there’s this invisible building right there that you can never see and everyone else saying it’s impossible to build anything there.”

Aziraphale’s mouth twitched into a small smile. And he wrapped his other hand over the one that Crowley was already holding. The gentle gesture sent a shiver down the demon’s spine.

“I know that you can feel love. And I know _who_ you love,” said Aziraphale slowly. He glanced down at their joined hands. “I’m not sure I deserve it.”

“You _do_ ,” he said forcefully, twisting and leaning towards the angel as he glared. He braced himself on the bed with his free hand, but he could feel his arm shaking slightly. “No matter what those hypocrites in Heaven made you think, you’re worthy of… You’re so clever, kind, caring, brave, and you have just enough of a vindictive side to be fun. Aziraphale, you deserve more than what I could ever give you.”

Closing his eyes and smiling, Aziraphale said, “More than you could ever give me? Crowley, I can’t even describe how… If you loved me any more than you already do, I don’t think I would be able to stay in the same room as you. It’s overwhelming. Overwhelming and wonderful. It’s rather humbling.”

Crowley settled back against the pillows with a quiet cough, refusing to look over at him and ignoring the warm feeling that was spreading across his face and down his neck. But he still didn’t pull his hand away from the angel’s comfortable grip. Maybe he could go back to sleep for a few more days. Everything that had happened since he’d woke up was a lot to process and those last few remarks from Aziraphale was definitely too much to handle.

When he did risk a quick look back, Crowley noticed that the angel was staring at him with a smirk. Was it too late to attempt a demonic miracle to hide what was apparently very obvious blushing?

But he couldn’t ignore… Aziraphale _knew_. He knew that Crowley loved him. And he wasn’t brushing it off or trying to let him down gently. The angel almost seemed happy about being loved by a demon. And that was…

Crowley felt that familiar and wonderful warmth inside. And he noticed Aziraphale’s smirk shifted towards an honest grin with the faintest hints of his own blush.

They sat there silently for a few moments. It was so peaceful and comforting. Crowley enjoyed the feeling of the angel holding his hand, Aziraphale’s familiar scent wrapping around him, and the bird songs drifting through the open window. They could just be together, coming to terms with everything that had come to light in such a short span of time.

But it couldn’t last forever.

“Crowley?” he said quietly, rubbing the demon’s hand in a soothing manner. “You didn’t answer my question before.”

Feeling like his stomach was dropping, Crowley asked, “Which question?”

“When did it start? The flowers?”

Closing his eyes, he asked, “You mean when I… when did I first love you?”

“Well, technically, yes,” said Aziraphale. “It would be rather flattering to know, but that’s not why. I want to know how long that curse was hurting you.”

Crowley cringed back into the pillow. He didn’t want to answer that question. Aziraphale already felt guilty over not noticing Crowley’s feelings and him not being able to access hellfire to help with the issue. This last admission would only make it worse. He didn’t want the angel to feel more guilty. He went to a lot of trouble to avoid causing that, including trying to die somewhere away from Aziraphale. Crowley didn’t want to say it.

But he also didn’t want to lie.

“It won’t do you any good to know, angel. The curse is gone. Everything is fine now. Can’t you just leave it at that? Can we just let it go?” he asked quietly.

Squeezing his hand, Aziraphale said, “Please. I need to know. I know that you spent a long time in pain, but… I can’t stop thinking about it. If we leave it to my imagination, I’ll only make it worse.” Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, he asked, “I know you probably don’t want to think about it, but… What activated the curse? What moment almost caused your death, Crowley?”

What moment? What moment caused the flowers and brambles to grow? What moment did he first experience love after the Fall? What moment started it all?

“A friendly conversation with an angel who cared enough to give up his flaming sword to protect a couple humans who were being punished and a wing sheltering a demon from the rain,” he admitted, remembering how that wonderful, warm, and bright thing felt the first time. Eyes still closed, Crowley whispered, “And that was it. That’s all it took. A couple selfless acts of kindness.”

When the hand vanished from his grip, Crowley’s eyes flashed open. Aziraphale was staring at him, eyes wide while he covered his mouth in stunned horror and guilt. His hands were both pressed tight. Hiding his mouth, but not disguising the way his breathing had transformed into shaky gasps. And the tears that had been threatening off and on since Crowley woke up were finally falling down his cheeks.

“Aziraphale?”

“Since Eden?” he asked in a choked voice. “Six thousand years? You’ve been in pain and dying since then? You’ve been in love with me for that long and I never noticed?”

“No, angel.” Crowley shook his head. “I loved you since that moment, but I didn’t fall _in love_ with you until later. That took time. I needed to know you better first.”

That clarification didn’t manage to interrupt or distract him the downward spiral that Aziraphale was currently heading into. Crowley knew that would have been too easy. Sometimes he could interrupt and force the angel onto another train of thought like that, but not today.

“That curse was _shredding_ your true form for six thousand years. You were in _agony_ that whole time and I was too _stupid_ to realize it. And it’s _my_ fault. I did that to you. I hurt you so much more than I could have ever imagined. I’m so sorry. You almost _died_ because of me. I’ve been killing you for thousands of years. How could you _bear_ it?”

And that was exactly what Crowley was hoping to avoid. At that moment, he wanted to grab Aziraphale by the lapels and slam him against the closest vertical surface, forcing the angel to pay attention. Unfortunately, while his corporeal body was perfectly healed, it was currently translating his near-death experience and the remaining damage to his true form into general exhaustion and weakness. Even stumbling out of the bed sounded like an impossible task.

On the other hand, he’d been producing demonic miracles right up until the last moment.

Crowley managed to snap his fingers and the wooden chair abruptly dumped the weepy angel forward until he sprawled across the mattress. And before Aziraphale could recover, Crowley grabbed the first thing that he could reach. Which turned out to be the angel’s wrist, which he squeezed hard enough to make Aziraphale look up at him.

“It _wasn’t_ your fault. How many times do I have to tell you that? You are _not_ responsible for _my_ feelingsss,” he hissed sharply. “And I _wasn’t_ in agony for the entire six thousand years. It took time to get bad. Started out just a little uncomfortable. Didn’t even start coughing up the flowers until the 1960s. I knew all the tricks to slow the curse down and deal with the brambles. Lasted longer than any other demon with it.”

Blinking away the tears and visibly struggling to regain his composure, Aziraphale said, “You mean hellfire. You said that can help.”

“Every time I headed down, I managed to take a quick dip,” he said, loosening his grip without letting go. “That was the trick everyone already knew. But there was another one that helped out more. I could prune away at them for a bit and they didn’t come back as quickly as they did when hellfire burned the plants away. Don’t think any other demon ever figured it out.”

Aziraphale sat up slowly, but didn’t return to his chair. He remained seated on the mattress. Crowley’s knees, while hidden under the blanket, were right next to the angel. He could already feel the warmth of Aziraphale’s proximity. If he leaned forward, Crowley could have grabbed his lapels like he’d wanted to before.

He wasn’t certain why that knowledge felt so distracting. They’d sat next to each other on the park bench plenty of times. Or sometimes Crowley’s chair would be beside Aziraphale’s instead of across the table when they went to dinner. Maybe it was because the angel _knew_. Aziraphale _knew_ how he felt about him. Maybe that’s what made the difference.

“It was a loophole,” he continued, trying to push past that distraction by speaking quickly. “Satan talked about how loving someone who’ll never love you back was pointless. And since we were demons, who could ever love us back? But that’s the thing. The curse activated when we loved, but what if someone could reciprocate? He never considered that. And kids are just so open and honest with their love. They can’t help it. And you know that I’ve always cared about kids. Loving them is easy and, yes, that would cause more flowers to grow. But when they loved me back, that would prune back the flowers that they caused _and_ some of the others. Like the ones that my feelings for _you_ caused. And then _their_ specific love never grew back. That’s how I survived longer than anyone else.” He smiled reassuringly. “See? It wasn’t as bad as you think. The curse didn’t get dangerous until near the end…”

The angel’s brow furrowed and Crowley fell silent. Something was wrong. He could see it in how Aziraphale’s expression slowly shifted. Crowley felt his mind running over the last few moments, trying to figure out his mistake. Aziraphale’s emotional state had been unsteady and wobbling since the demon woke up. Like a table with mismatched legs. He’d been through far too much stress in a very short span of time. Bouncing between highs and lows. And Crowley was afraid that his attempt to reassure the angel only sent him towards another low.

“You should have told me,” said Aziraphale, his voice tight again. “You should have told me, Crowley. I… I… I could have…”

Crowley pulled the angel’s hand closer and said, “It wouldn’t have helped. You can’t force these types of things and failing would have just hurt you.”

“I could have helped you,” he said, a little more forcefully. “I could have done something.”

“There was nothing that you could have done. It was my feelings that caused the problem. It’s not your fault what I felt. And it’s not your fault what you feel or don’t feel. I’ve known for a long time that you don’t love me back and that’s fine.”

“But I _do_ love you,” said Aziraphale sharply.

* * *

“Should we go up there and let them know we can hear them?” asked Newt.

The pair sat around their kitchen table, occasionally shooting up looks towards the ceiling. They’d been starting up breakfast when they heard the first sounds from their long-term guests that they’d made in weeks. Now they weren’t even pretending to go through the motions and were sipping on their respective sources of caffeine while semi-muffled voices came from upstairs.

After almost a month of walking on eggshells, not certain how to handle the unconscious demon and the angel sitting vigil at his bedside while practically radiating anxiety through the whole building, it was comforting to know that things were improving. Even if Anathema and Newt were now exposed to relationship drama several thousand years in the making. They couldn’t make out every word, but they could overhear enough.

Peering over the top of her glasses, Anathema asked, “Do _you_ want to interrupt _that_?”

“Uh…” Newt glanced back towards the ceiling again before cringing in discomfort. “On second thought, maybe we should head to the market or something. Give them some privacy.”

“And if they don’t have their act together by the time we get back, we can always call Madame Tracy and send her after the two of them.”


	11. New Growth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While certain labels can’t be considered completely accurate when describing an angel and a demon, the closest human terms would have Aziraphale and Crowley considered as demiromantic asexuals in this fic. Just in case you were curious.
> 
> Let’s see if I can wrap this story up and get these two on the same page properly.

Silence.

Crowley felt like he’d gone deaf. He couldn’t hear anything. Not even his own breathing or heartbeat, both growing a little faster. There was a strange roar in his ears, but it didn’t feel like normal sound. Words echoed in his head. In the silence. Impossible words. More unbelievable than his continued existence.

He… Aziraphale… What…

As Crowley’s mind struggled to grasp the impossibility, his rebooting thoughts vaguely noticed that Aziraphale looked just as stunned by his own words. The angel blinked, eyes wide and staring at nothing. His free hand drifted up to his mouth slowly. Touching his lips, as if trying to remember that they were a part of him. As if they were some separate entity with a mind of their own.

“Oh,” he said quietly. “I… I _do_.” Aziraphale’s eyes managed to slowly focus on the demon. “I do love you. How… How did I miss it? How did… I… I _love_ you, Crowley. I really do. And I think… I think I’ve loved you for a… a very long time. How did I not realize it? Was I that blind or… or did I just not want to accept it?” He fiddled with the front of his waistcoat with his free hand, glancing down and frowning to himself. “Oh, this… I’m so sorry. Maybe if I figured it out sooner… Maybe if I wasn’t such a coward… Maybe the curse… Oh, I’ve been such a fool for far too long. Can you ever forgive me, Crowley?”

Aziraphale glanced back up, his expression pleading and guilt stricken. But the demon couldn’t respond. His mind couldn’t seem to cooperate. His thoughts were stuck in an endless loop. Almost nothing seemed to register properly. Only one thing mattered.

“Crowley?”

Voice shaking, he whispered, “You… you love me?”

“I do,” said Aziraphale. He nodded slowly. “I do love you. I’m sorry that I was so slow to notice the truth. You were always faster than me, but this was inexcusable. It was foolish to miss your feelings for so long, even if I couldn’t sense them, but it was completely unforgivable to remain ignorant of my own.”

“You… really love me?”

Actual love. Not the generic answer of angels loving everything equally, which he’d long since figured out was nowhere close to the truth. That wasn’t what Aziraphale was talking about. It wasn’t the corporate mission statement. It was… It…

Something soft and sad shone in the angel’s eyes. Then he moved, sliding along the blanket towards him, turning around until Aziraphale sat next to Crowley. His back settled against the pillows piled against the headboard and one arm slipped around the demon’s shoulders. The other hand twisted so that Crowley was holding his hand instead of that weakening grasp on the angel’s wrist. Aziraphale’s arm pulled him a little closer, shrinking those last few centimeters into nothing. It took Crowley a moment to recognize the sideways hug for what it was. But then he sank into the careful embrace.

It was too much. Too perfect. He was alive and he didn’t hurt for the first time in he couldn’t begin to remember. The curse was gone. Not just pushed back until the next time he allowed himself to care about someone, but _gone_. Forever. Aziraphale knew that he loved the angel. And now the angel claimed to love him back and he was holding him. Holding him just like Crowley had wanted in those final moments. He’d wanted this even as he hoped that Aziraphale stayed away to avoid the heartache. It was everything that Crowley had ever wanted. More than he could have ever hoped for. It was too much. Far too much.

It couldn’t be real. He didn’t deserve this perfect moment. He wasn’t lucky enough for this. Maybe it was a dying dream, stretching out impossibly long. Or perhaps there was something waiting for angels and demons beyond oblivion. A fantasy of whatever they liked best. Perhaps this vision was his reward for his attempts to keep the world spinning.

It couldn’t be real, but it _felt_ real. Vividly. As if every nerve in his exhausted body was on high alert, categorizing every sensation. The texture of the familiar coat and waistcoat. The pounding heartbeat that could belong to either of them. The warmth soaking into him from the embrace. The strong and soft arms of the angel that curled around him. Holding him close. And every rapid breath filled Crowley with the comforting scent. The one that he would recognize anywhere.

Crowley twisted slightly and let his head sink until his face pressed into Aziraphale’s shoulder. The angel adjusted his grip to the small change, adapting naturally. As if Crowley belonged there. As if he was wanted there.

As if he was loved.

It had been a long and stressful month for Aziraphale, filled with stunning revelations that rattled his worldview and intense emotions. The demon was unconscious through the worst of the shocks. He knew that the angel had gone through the emotional wringer and Crowley had seen plenty of evidence of that since he’d regained consciousness. He’d tried to reassure and be a steady presence like always, regardless of how tired he felt and how much he was struggling to catch up himself. He’d tried to help Aziraphale. Because that was familiar. Because that’s how Crowley reacted to things and because his angel needed him.

But it had been a lot for Crowley as well. Far too much had happened. And all of it overwhelming and intense.

“Is this all right?” asked Aziraphale, still holding him carefully.

And that was it. The gentle and quiet question tipped the scales and everything felt too overwhelming for him to handle. He was feeling too much and he was too tired. Crowley managed to nod while keeping his face pressed into the angel’s shoulder. But the gesture gave way to slight shivering and silent tears. Silent, exhausted, and overwhelmed tears that he couldn’t resist. And with far too much effort, Crowley managed to get one arm wrapped around to return the embrace. Weak fingers digging into the fabric of the old coat.

They had a future. Together. _He_ had a future.

Crowley spent six thousand years with a death sentence hanging over him. He’d had a long time to come to terms with it. Not knowing if he would make it through the next century, the next decade, the next _year_. Crowley had tried not to dwell on it. Mortals certainly didn’t dwell constantly on their mortality. But he’d known that he was living on very limited time. He came with an expiration date. He’d lasted longer than anyone else, but that had just added to the uncertainty of how much longer he could keep going.

He should be dead. By all rights, Crowley should be dead by that point. He was supposed to be dead and gone. All that he had in front of him was oblivion.

But that wasn’t true anymore. He had a future that stretched out in front of him. A future with Aziraphale. A future where he could be with Aziraphale as much as he wanted. A future that wouldn’t be taken from them by Heaven, Hell, the Apocalypse, or the curse. A future where Crowley could be with his angel. A future where he could love Aziraphale, openly and honestly. And where Aziraphale loved him back.

Aziraphale loved him. He loved Crowley and that was more than he’d ever dreamed possible. And Aziraphale hadn’t tried to force himself to feel something, attempting to save the demon. It wasn’t emotions born out of pity or obligation. There was no curse. No reason that the angel would have to make himself feel something. Anything that Aziraphale felt was real and authentic. Not something that happened because Crowley would die otherwise. Aziraphale loved him for no other reason than because he did.

Demons couldn’t sense love like angels did. But wrapped in Aziraphale’s warm embrace, he felt loved.

He wouldn’t call what was happening crying. Mostly out of pride and the stubborn assertion that demons don’t cry into their angel’s coat. He still had a few shreds of a reputation that he wanted to maintain. There weren’t strong sobs that shook his whole body and left him choking on the tightness in his throat. And there wasn’t much noise. Just a slow stream of tired and overwhelmed tears that dried into the fabric. All easily denied. Though Crowley thought that he could hear some quiet sniffling from the angel too.

“I almost lost you,” whispered Aziraphale after a while. He let go of Crowley’s hand so that he could wrap both arms around the demon. “I could have lost you. All because I was too stupid and too afraid to realize what I felt.”

Shifting slightly, Crowley mumbled, “Don’t say that.” He turned his head until he was resting his cheek against the fabric and his voice was no longer muffled. “You’re absolutely brilliant and brave, angel. Heaven just messed things up. They scared you into denying and burying everything about yourself and everything that matters to you. Takes time to get past that. Not your fault.”

“I should have done better. I should have… I don’t know, but I should have at least recognized my own emotions. Especially love. Angels are supposed to… Angels and love… They… I should have known. I should have figured it out. You knew from the beginning what you felt for me.”

“Well, yeah, but I didn’t exactly have the luxury of _not_ knowing. I couldn’t have ended up in denial even if I tried. Bit hard to pretend you don’t love the kind and friendly angel on the wall when you immediately start sprouting flowers.”

One of Aziraphale’s hands was rubbing small circles on his back, close to where his wings would be if he manifested them. Wings were always unique compared to the rest of them. Wings were somehow able to qualify as a part of their true form and a part of their physical body when someone brought them out. And even with his wings tucked away, the gentle touch where they belonged made Crowley shiver. It felt nice. Like touching the border between the physical part of him and the metaphysical part.

“Who knows,” he continued. “Maybe without the curse, I would have been completely oblivious too. Without those flowers to clue me in, who knows how long I wouldn’t have noticed. Could have been the worst case of denial in history.”

“Worse than me?” asked Aziraphale, his voice carrying the faintest hint of a tired smile.

Giving a small nod and blinking away the lingering tears, Crowley said, “Imagine it. Both of us bumbling around without a clue, completely oblivious to anything.”

“So rather like our attempts to stop the Apocalypse?”

That startled a laugh out of him. And that sent the angel chuckling with him. Somehow their shared laughter managed to lessen the feeling of heavy emotions clinging to them. Crowley relaxed further into the hug, a smile tugging at his mouth.

After a few minutes of silence, Crowley seriously considering just drifting off in the comforting embrace, Aziraphale said, “You know that I’m still upset with you, don’t you? I’ll eventually forgive you, but…” His head settled on the demon’s shoulder, mirroring Crowley’s position. “You planned that whole day, doing everything to make me happy and to make it special… You did all that because your plan was to slip away and die alone. Like I wouldn’t notice or care that you were gone. Do you know how much it hurt when I saw the thermos and realized what it meant?”

“I’m sorry, angel.”

“We put it back in the Bentley after… after everything was over,” he continued. “And if you _ever_ give me that thermos again, I will strangle you.”

Grimacing, Crowley said, “All right, in hindsight, that may not have been the best way to break the news.”

“No, it was not.” A shiver ran through the angel as he hugged Crowley tighter. "I don’t know what you were thinking.”

“Sorry…. I’ll tell you next time if something is wrong…”

The words were coming slower now. His eyes felt heavier. He didn’t need to open them, but it would be a struggle if he did. His exhausted body was trying to surrender. Understandable since he nearly died and everything. Crowley lost his weak grip on the angel’s coat, leaving him limp in Aziraphale’s arms.

“I also have to question your wisdom in leaving me those pressed flowers, now that I know the source,” continued Aziraphale, his voice turning soft again. He started rearranging the pillows with one hand, trying to settle Crowley back into lying down flat. “Those flowers were killing you. Not the most appropriate gift when you consider their origin.”

“They were the ones representing my… my feelings for you,” he argued stubbornly. “They belonged with you.”

“Still rather questionable.”

“Like your sense of fashion?”

“I didn’t hear you complaining about the pajamas,” he grumbled, tucking the blanket around the demon again.

“Too tired to care. Plus, they aren’t tartan.”

Crowley half-expected him to move back to the wooden chair. And his coat did, neatly folded and set aside to keep it from wrinkling. But Aziraphale himself carefully laid down next to him, curling on his side while wrapping one arm around the demon. Pulling him close, his hand cradling the back of Crowley’s head as the demon was nestled against him. Letting Crowley soak in the comforting presence of his warmth and his familiar scent.

“Is this all right?” asked Aziraphale softly.

He managed a wordless hum of approval, drowsy pleasure already seeping in. Crowley knew that he should say something. About all of this. But his mind didn’t want to cooperate on that goal. He couldn’t think of the right words to say. He just wanted to bask in the perfectness of it all.

Though one question managed to slither into his thoughts. And he could never stop himself from asking questions.

“Aziraphale?” he mumbled. “Did… did Book-Girl and her fellow actually _have_ a spare bedroom before? Or did you do something? Looks a lot like how you’d decorate it.”

He felt the angel stiffen beside him. And Crowley suspected that if he could convince his rebellious eyes to open, he would see Aziraphale blushing.

“I mean, I… I _assumed_ that they had one. It only seemed logical. Though now that you mention it, they did seem a _tad_ surprised when I carried you in here... I was a little distracted and didn’t pay that much attention. Oh dear…”

Quietly chuckling, Crowley said, “So you might have accidentally gave them an entirely new room to their home. Without even noticing.”

“We don’t know that for _certain_.”

He continued to chuckle quietly, listening to the angel’s quiet muttering about whether or not his expectations for there to be a second bedroom in the Jasmine Cottage actually created one. But it didn’t take long for Crowley to drift his way back towards sleep. He was safe, warm, and comfortable. And more importantly, he was with Aziraphale and knew that his angel would still be there when he woke up. Crowley didn’t think that he could feel more relaxed and calm if he tried.

And maybe once he would have thought that the featherlight touch of someone pressing a hesitant kiss to his forehead just as he slipped under was just his imagination. But now, Crowley felt rather certain that it was real.

* * *

There were new posters along the walls of Hell.

At first glance, it would be simple to mistake them for another of the demotivational posters scattered around. The font was just as ridiculous, as if chosen by a kid during his first school project on a computer. Though the random dinosaurs, cowboys, and spaceships at least made them interesting.

But these new posters weren’t approved by the Dark Council. They just appeared one day, scattered around at regular intervals. A demon couldn’t go very far without spotting another one. And despite the commands to remove them, no one had figured out how to get rid of the posters.

They’d tried. The demons in charge of the task had taxed their limited imagination until a few ended up curled up on the ground, nursing an agonizing headache from the strain.

They tried tearing at the posters with claws, blades, and chisels. They tried burning them. They tried blasting them with explosives, half collapsing the hallways in the process. They tried defacing, scribbling, and painting over the writing. One demon even tried chewing on the poster. Nothing worked. Nothing that they attempted could remove the illegal posters or conceal their message.

Eventually, the new orders were for no one to pay any attention to the hundreds of new posters scattered around. If they couldn’t get rid of them, then the demons would simply have to pretend that they didn’t exist. Unfortunately for the Dark Council, it was an order that was nearly impossible to enforce. Especially since the whole debacle caused the gossip to fly fast. Even the least literate demons knew what the posters said by the end of the week.

_Attention All Demons:_

_The Love Flower Curse is unfair and should be destroyed. There is a new way to get rid of it. If you want to be free of the curse without losing your ability to love, this can be arranged as long as you promise not to ask for Armageddon to start up again._

_Send a postcard to Adam Young in Tadfield asking to arrange a meeting. Please give enough information for a summoning, provided by Anathema Device. No threatening, no lying, no betraying, and no attempts to hurt anyone during the visit. Trying to visit Tadfield uninvited or for revenge over the Nah-pocalypse is not allowed._

Most demons were too suspicious of the offer. Anything that sounded too good to be true generally ended up horrifying and painful. But the faint hope that the posters caused quickly became too deeply rooted to ignore. If it was fake, would those in power be trying so hard to hide the posters? Wouldn’t they just roll their eyes and let the idiots waste their time chasing fairy tales?

After the initial hesitation and suspicion, postcards started arriving at the Young’s residence.

* * *

Crowley didn’t immediately shrug off the effects of everything that happened. He was recovering and a concerned angel made certain that he kept that in mind. But Anathema and Newt had been more than generous about letting them stay and both immortal entities missed more familiar surroundings.

As soon as Crowley could manage it, the pair of them headed back to London, the Bentley doing more of the actual driving than the demon. And while they’d briefly discussed the idea of returning to his flat with his large and comfortable bed, their final destination ended up being the bookshop. Where Crowley collapsed on the sofa almost immediately after the drive, exhausted and frustrated with his exhaustion even as he essentially passed out for the rest of the day.

Aziraphale continued to keep the bookshop closed as the demon remained camped out on the sofa, spending most of his time curled up under a blanket that the angel provided. A _tartan_ blanket, but it was too warm and cozy for Crowley to do more than grumble. And being back somewhere familiar and safe, surrounded by the comforting scents of _old books_ and _Aziraphale_ , soothed and reassured the demon into resting easier.

He slept. Not for a month straight again and he slowly managed to stay awake for longer spans of time, but he still spent more time napping than not. Crowley slept, trying to recover his strength as all his energy focused on healing the damage to his true form. Healing wounds that had been there for countless centuries.

Healing. Finally healing. Slowly and gradually. Aziraphale had managed to seal the wounds enough to stop ichor from bleeding and oozing out, but the rest took time. The dull aching faded. Scales grew back. Scars grew less distinct. And while the damage was bad enough that several sockets remained empty and blind, at least some of his eyes that he’d thought were gone were recovering. He could properly See again.

Crowley knew that some marks would never disappear. Not completely. There would always be evidence. But Crowley didn’t mind that much. He could adapt. His true form had been changed before, healing in a different way than he used to be. And unlike the Fall, at least these scars were caused by love.

His continued exhaustion and weakness were frustrating to deal with, but it wasn’t all bad. Crowley could manage to sit up or walk around for a little while, though he was smart enough to stay close to the sofa or at least a bookshelf that he could grab to steady himself. And Aziraphale would sit next to him, sometimes reading from one of his books. Or they would talk and drink a little, almost like normal except Crowley’s alcohol tolerance had taken a dive along with his energy as everything healed. Sometimes the angel would put on a record and play some music. And sometimes when Crowley was half-asleep, Aziraphale would sit on the edge of the sofa and gently run his fingers through Crowley’s hair.

Neither angels nor demons were naturally tactile entities. They didn’t need physical contact the way that humans did. After all, infants could die if they weren’t held and gently touched enough. Angels and demons weren’t like that.

But after six thousand years in very human corporations and living among humanity, certain things tended to rub off. Crowley could appreciate the comfort from human contact. Or rather, angelic contact. There was a reason why part of him wanted to hold or be held by Aziraphale when he was dying, just as there was a reason why that embrace afterwards in Jasmine Cottage continued to run through Crowley’s head even weeks later. There was something comforting and reassuring in even the small gestures of affection.

Crowley smiled lazily, eyes shut as he felt the angel’s fingers drag slowly through his hair. Short and neat fingernails gently running along his scalp. Humans would call the sensation heavenly, but he would just describe it as wonderful.

Sharing such gestures were new for them. New, but welcomed like the admission of emotions on both sides. And it was easier for Aziraphale to do such things when Crowley remained on the cusp of sleep. As if he was a little self-conscious and uncertain about their new boundaries. The angel would hold his hand or embrace him when he was worried over the demon or he would run his fingers through Crowley’s hair when the demon was supposed to be sleeping, but he would hesitate at other times.

But that was all right. Crowley certainly wouldn’t mind Aziraphale embracing those gestures or saying the words more often, but change never came quickly to the angel and he would accept whatever Aziraphale could give him. He knew that it was a lot for the angel to adapt to in a very short span of time. Even soft touches were a big step. He could be patient. They had all the time in the world now.

Aziraphale loved him. And Crowley loved Aziraphale. The thought always made the warm bright thing inside him burn brighter. There were no obstacles. No time limits. He could love his angel without pain and he was loved in return.

“I know what you’re thinking about,” said Aziraphale quietly, the repetitive motion slowing. “I can _sense_ it.”

Still smiling drowsily, Crowley said, “Good.” He leaned into the angel’s hand slightly, eyes still closed. “I _want_ you to know.”

“Is that _all_ that you want?”

Something in the angel’s question made Crowley open his eyes. While still leaning over him, Aziraphale was looking away. Staring off into the distance with a thoughtful expression. Thoughtful and mildly uncertain.

“What do you mean, angel?”

Crowley had to ask. He needed to know what was going through Aziraphale’s head in that moment. Not just because of his natural curiosity and his endless questions. Crowley knew that they weren’t good at direct communication; six thousand years of relying on implying and dancing around subjects for safety reasons ensured that much. But a lack of communication had caused them both too much suffering already. They needed to try harder when it came to talking about things properly and that meant he needed to know what exactly Aziraphale was asking.

“I mean you’ve endured so much. You’ve been more than patient with me. And sometimes I… I don’t feel like I’ve… I was too scared to acknowledge my own feelings until Heaven and Hell left us alone _and_ I had undeniable proof that you loved me back,” he said slowly. “It feels like I took the easy way out while making you go through…”

“Hey,” said Crowley, sitting up slightly and leaning towards him. “Don’t think like that. Please? We’ve talked about this.”

“I know. But I also want to be braver. To do this right. I love you and I don’t want you to… to _not_ do or have things that you want because I’m too scared. But I don’t want to push things too much and make you uncomfortable either. I just need to know what you want out of all of… _this_. I want you to be happy.”

“Happy?” he asked. “Aziraphale, I _am_ happy. I don’t… What more could I possibly want?”

“I don’t know. Humans in love with each other… They seem to like… It’s up to you, but I’m familiar with what humans in love tend to do together. I spent quite a bit of time in certain gentleman’s clubs and I was bound to pick up a few things.”

Staring at him, Crowley said, “Last time I checked, neither of us are human.”

“Well, no, but they are the only real examples that I have to draw on. Angels might be meant to love, but I don’t know of any who are _in_ love. Certainly none that I ever knew personally. And due to that horrible curse, I doubt you know many demons in love with each other. With nothing else established, I could only reflect on human relationships of this nature.”

“Aziraphale,” he said, “we don’t need to worry about what humans would do if they were us. We don’t have to copy them if you don’t want to.”

“I know. But is _any of that_ ,” asked Aziraphale, gesturing vaguely in front of him, “something that you want?”

“Like what? Dating? Holding hands? Make-out sessions, drunken or otherwise?” he asked. “Sex? All of the above? Is that what you mean?”

“Is that what you want? You’ve been waiting for such a long time and I kept you at arm’s length for too much of it. After six thousand years, you probably want more than… Well, just _more_.”

Reaching over and squeezing his hand briefly, Crowley said, “Aziraphale, I just want _you_. Just you being yourself. Being around you and getting to make you happy? That’s all I’ve ever needed.”

“Then don’t tell me what you _need_ ,” he said. “Tell me what would make _you_ happy. It can’t just be one way.”

Crowley didn’t immediately answer, reaching down to where he’d left his sunglasses. He didn’t put them on. He twisted them in his hands, staring down at them.

Aziraphale wasn’t going to let the subject drop. Which was probably a good thing. Just because they’d both admitted to loving each other didn’t mean that they shouldn’t discuss it further. They needed to try and get on the same page for once. They needed to communicate and figure out where the boundaries and lines were. All the old ones had been rubbed out at some point when Crowley was meant to die and didn’t.

He just didn’t know what to say. He’d never really allowed his thoughts to drift in that direction. The idea of their relationship shifting from “friendship” to “friendship plus something _else_ ” had never seemed possible. It wasn’t worth thinking of the different things that Crowley might want from that change.

Aziraphale might have been the one who spent a long time drowning himself in denial, but Crowley couldn’t help wondering how many things that he’d suppressed over the millennia.

“I… _Gnk_ … I would… _Hng_ …” Crowley struggled to get his mouth and thoughts working together. “I like taking you to dinner. And shows. And picnics and walks in the parks and long drives. I like doing things for you. Even things that you could do with your own miracle, but you ask me to do it anyway. I want to keep doing that. I like making you smile.”

“What else?” he urged gently.

“I… I like it when you hold my hand. And when you run your fingers through my hair. And when you hug me… I’d like… I’d like it if you keep doing that, even when I’m healed and can stay awake for more than a couple hours at a time. I like it when you hold me… and I’d like to hold you back. Even if it’s for no reason. And I liked it when you kissed my forehead. It doesn’t have to be just my forehead. Anywhere that you want. And I would like to do the same for you someday. If that isn’t too much and too fast for you,” said Crowley quietly, still watching the sunglasses twist in his hands. “Everything else? I don’t mind either way. I’ll go with it if you want it, but… As long as I can love you and you love me back, I’m more than happy.”

“I do.” Aziraphale reached over, framing Crowley’s face with his hands as he coaxed the demon into looking up at him. Smiling, he said, “I do love you. Very much.”

Then he leaned forward and pressed a careful kiss to Crowley’s forehead. Short, chaste, and sweet, the gesture still made something in Crowley grow bright and warm. He was still smiling by the time that Aziraphale pulled away.

“And everything that you listed, I would be more than delighted to do with you,” continued Aziraphale. “They all sound perfect. There is, however, one thing that I must ask you to avoid moving forward.”

“Anything, angel,” he said, still feeling a little dazed from the small kiss.

“I know it is traditional among humans, but… Please don’t give me flowers as a gift. I think we’ve both had enough of that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of this fic. I hope that all of you have enjoyed yourselves.
> 
> Also, one of my readers was kind enough to draw fanart for this story. It is listed as one of the works inspired by this one. I recommend taking a look. It is quite gorgeous.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Somebody to Love (Fanart)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24046513) by [TerraNee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerraNee/pseuds/TerraNee)




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